Real or Not Real?
by JackBadJuJu
Summary: *MOCKINGJAY SPOILERS* A series of one shots about Peeta & Katniss after the third book. Chapters will range in various lengths, genres, & content. Quotes featured from the books. Suggestions or Requests are welcomed. Rated M.
1. Chapter 1

**This is short but I would imagine the chapters getting longer in the future. Suggestions are welcomed. **

**Thanks for reading. Please review. **

The house feels cold tonight. Too quiet. Everything always feels like that now but for some reason at this moment everything feels so much more pronounced. I wander the house hoping to find something. Some comfort. Some distraction. But there is nothing here but me and the memories that haunt me.

I end up standing in the foyer waiting. I'm not sure what I'm waiting for until he walks through the door. He doesn't even knock or check if the door is locked. It never is for him. Peeta doesn't say anything when he sees my state. I'm wrapped up in my blanket, barefoot, and holding the distressed expression I have whenever the nightmares are particularly rough.

"I heard you scream." He tells me quietly. I must have been louder than I thought. "Then nothing. I was…nervous I guess."

He should have been nervous about me. The idea of killing myself is still not out of my head. It's still swirls around my dark thoughts and I let it stay there and dream up possibilities of how I would do it. And the longing to do it usually coincides with one of my nightmares. Yes, nervous is the right feeling to have.

"I…uh…I wanted to make sure you were okay." He presses his lips together and stares at me.

I realize the house is not that cold suddenly. The air has been lit up with his words. The silence is only mine. My chest relieves some tension and I know I want him here with me.

I grab his hand and he follows me upstairs. I go straight to my bedroom and to my disheveled bed. I let go of his hand and climb back in. He is frozen with the question_ 'Are you sure?' _written on his face. I don't answer him. I just wait until finally he is able to move and lies down on the other side of the bed. It doesn't take much to get his arms wrapped around me. It doesn't take much to have our breathing level out. We are sleep sooner than I could have hoped.

It's like this for few days. He comes over expected but not planned in the middle of the night about the same time he came the first time. Then in a few weeks he starts coming over for dinner instead of waiting for the suffocation of the dark night. We work on the book in the evening instead of during the day. We try to focus on more positive things so our nightmares will perhaps be more lenient on us.

I wake up one night soon after though from a harsh dream.

The sky filled with parachutes and everyone I love below is grasping at them as if something absolutely needed is inside of them. Only I know the truth but I am up the flag pole again screaming at them to run. In all of their hands the people that I love, alive and dead, the parachutes magically land. They look up at me. It's the same looks I saw on the rebels' faces when I spoke. They see the Mockingjay.

I scream until my dream mutes my voice. They still hold the parachutes in their hands looking helpless and confused. Then suddenly just like in reality the parachutes blow up setting on fire everyone. Their bodies disintegrate before my eyes but their faces remain still looking up at me with the same expressions.

Then suddenly they start chanting my name. "Katniss. Katniss. Katniss."

I wake up screaming with Peeta's face above me. My arms are pined to my sides. I suppose I was flailing around too much for him. "It's okay." He tells me.

I cry. No, it wasn't okay but I understood what he meant. It's okay because our dreams make the reality even worse. Even more painful. We are only subconsciously torturing ourselves.

He holds me as I cry myself out but I am unable to slip back into sleep. When I finally am quiet he pulls back and I read the same painful expression I'm sure I have. He kisses my forehead gently and then my tear stained cheeks. I see he's been crying too.

I grab his face with my two hands wanting to study him. Wanting to understand him the same way he understands me. I kiss his cheeks as gently as he had mine. Then I have the strange urge to kiss him on the lips. I struggle with the desire feeling like I don't deserve to feel comfort like this. But the pain is too much. Too present in my chest still from the dream. I give in and press my lips to his.

He doesn't resist. He doesn't question me. He doesn't have to.

That night I feel that thing again, the hunger that overtook me on the beach and I know this would have happened anyway.

He is warm and needed. I don't hide the want of him this time. I kiss him harder and more passionately. I feel him respond with equal fervor. Between our kisses I feel his tongue peek out and lick my lips. I touch my tongue to his and let him have the kisses he always wanted. I am consumed by him and I don't fear it or avoid it. Above me he trembles as I allow my hands to run through his hair and down his back.

We slow down. He stares at me for a long uninterrupted time. I let him with asking why. I know now my choice has always been him. He was mine before the Capitol took him away, and he is mine now even after everything they did to him. I can't let him go. I hope he sees it in my eyes.

So when he whispers, "You love me. Real or not real?"

I answer back with no shred of doubt. "Real."


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks so much for the many reviews. It was quite a pleasant surprise. It cheered me up a lot. **

**If you have anything you would like to see in this one shot series tell me in reviews or messages. I'm sure people will want to see stuff like her being preggers and the such. Tell me if you want me to focus on anything. Basically help me out with ideas. I know…I'm being lazy, aren't I? I have some ideas though. No worries. **

**Thanks so much for your support. Thanks for reading. **

**Please Review. **

Three nights in a row I dream of her. The same dream. Three nights in a row I wake up screaming and wrestling with Peeta, not understanding he is trying to help me. Three nights I've lost sleep. By the fourth I can't even consider the idea. I stay up.

I go downstairs and look at the book. This book with so many of my memories and now Peeta's and Haymitch's too. I flip through it knowing I'm stalling. All alone and I can't even admit to myself what needs to be done. What needs to be written down.

The dream starts with me and Prim in the kitchen of our old house. She is showing me some new plant she has learned about and I'm trying my best to pay attention. I close my eyes exasperated with the detailed medical description Prim is giving. I only close them for second but that's enough to transport me back to the Capitol square.

There in front of me is President Snow's mansion. There is no one. Not one soul. Then a flicker will happen and I see what I saw that day. People being mowed down with bullets. The pods from every street randomly going off and killing anyone in their path in the most heinous deaths I have seen. And blood. So much blood. Then there is no one but me. Flicker on, flicker off. It's like the people and noise and action is all part of a hologram.

I start walking and every single time the flicker comes back on I stop and watch. Then I move when it stops. Finally I'm at the flag pole that I climbed that day. I see myself up it when the flicker goes on. Then the parachutes going off. Then I see her. She looks so grown up. She looks strong and focused and my chest swells with pride.

Something strange happens with the flicker. It stays on but only with Prim. The rest of the people and action has stopped. Disappeared. I only see her oddly transparent and grainy. I run over to her hoping I can save her. I yell at her to run. I try to grab her but my hands slip right through her. I cry out for help. I beg her to move. I call for Peeta, Gale, my mother, anybody.

Then she looks at me. Her innocence and patience is so well preserved even in the hologram. Her mouth forms my name on her lips and suddenly she disappears. She's gone. The flicker goes out.

I sob with unrestrained grief. The first night it took me by surprise when the flicker came back on with only Prim once more, but I realized by the second night it was only ever going to replay this part. Her last moments are ingrained so much in my mind that I would dream of trying to save her at least ten times before something or someone starts dragging me back. A pair of arms strong and persistent literally drags me out of my self contained hell.

I've surmised that the arms are Peeta's because I wake up not laying on the bed but cradled in his arms. He doesn't ask what I've dreamed because I'm pretty sure I was screaming her name the whole time. Maybe I was even screaming his, I don't know.

I try to calm myself from reliving the dream but I see that I'm gripping the book so hard my hands are pale white. I slowly let go and try to concentrate on happier times with Prim. That's all I've been writing about. All the times that I treasure now, but for some reason can't remember as well. It's as if that horrific day of seeing her terrible death is the main thing I have to remember her by. I hate it because I want to remember how she lived not how she died.

But I know I have to write how she died. I have to put it down on paper. I have to make it real. I feel like writing it, making it real, making it final…will kill her all over again. I already feel like I'm her murderer. I find the sick irony that this whole mess started with me trying to save her life from the Hunger Games. I guess when death has your number it will find a way no matter what.

I become angry. No, not angry. Livid. I take the book and slam down on the table knocking over a vase and shattering it on the floor. I then am furious that the vase broke and looks for something else to break. A picture on the wall becomes my target. I rip it from the wall hating that the Capital designed this house, decorated it, and gave it to me. I hate myself for living in it, but there is nowhere else to live now.

I go for something else but there are the arms again pulling me back. I wonder if I'm asleep and I've finally dreamed of something different. When he puts his arms around me shushing me, I know I'm not.

I'd been screaming and crying and hadn't heard the sounds over my pain. I woke him up by trying to destroy the house. I turn around and let him hold me tighter. His lips are at my ear saying comforting words like one would do with a child. He picks me up suddenly and hauls me over to the couch. When he sits me down I notice my feet are bleeding. I must have walked through the glass. I don't feel the pain until that second.

He starts to move away from me. "Peeta!" I call out.

"I'm not leaving." He comes back and moves my hair out of my face. "I just need to clean you up."

"I killed her, Peeta. I did. Trying to save her, I ended up killing her. It was all for nothing." I sob to him. I hate how weak I sound but I hate even more how weak I feel.

"Katniss, you didn't kill your sister." He tells me firmly. He breathes a moment and seems to take a moment to control whatever emotional fight is happening in him. I feel guilty because he's unstable too.

"I can't do this anymore. It hurts too much. I just want to…" I can't finish the words. What do I want to do? I have wanted to die for a long time, but it doesn't seem like enough. I want to be punished. Maybe that's what is happening anyway.

"Come here." Peeta pulls me forward and I allow myself to wrap around him. I cry some more before finally I find the exercise painful and exhausting physically and emotionally.

"You know I love you right?" Peeta looks down at me. I nod to him.

"I do too." I say to him. It's the closest I've gotten to the words, but it will have to do. "I'm sorry. I just…I've been dreaming about her the past three nights. And it just hurts, Peeta. It hurts too much."

"I knew you were dreaming of her. You screamed her name all night. You screamed a few times for me. It was very hard to watch." He breathes out as if having to restrain himself again. And then I think that he probably battles with the memories of having to comfort me from dreams before. And the memories are always connected so I'm sure he thinks of things that didn't happen because of the Capital hijacking his mind.

"I'm sorry I upset you." I say quietly.

"You couldn't have helped it Katniss." He sighs out having come back from his own turmoil. "Let's get you cleaned up."

While he picks our seven shards of glass from my foot I tell him about my dream of Prim. He doesn't seem shocked when I give details over her death. He knew somewhat by being around the area at the time it happened. But I learn that Prim's death was televised as I had suspected and that he had seen it. I cry a little thinking of my mother probably watching it too before I'm able to continue. When I do I feel a little relief letting someone in on what's been torturing me.

"What do you miss the most about her?" Peeta finally asks. I wonder if he's just trying to get me to talk about more positive things.

"I think…I guess I miss the way she saw around problems, or at least through them. She was the one to help figure out how to help you. I miss how mature and compassionate minded she was. How loving and pure she was. God, I miss everything." I swallow down the emotion that built up over the question. "What do you miss about your family?"

Peeta looks up from what he's doing and pauses a moment. He thinks a little and then starts working on my foot again. "Sometimes it's hard to remember them."

"Because of the hijacking stuff?" I ask.

"Yes and no. Some of the memories they didn't really need to touch. Some of them I think they did at the beginning to see if their methods would work or let's be honest, probably just to screw with me." I feel my anger for people that don't even exist anymore rise before I quell it with an uncharacteristic surge of patience. Peeta needs to be listened to just as much I do.

"But sometimes it just hurts to remember. What I do remember I know I will miss. I miss my father telling stories. Especially when they were about your family. He really did love your mother." His blue eyes meet mine with a sad smile. "I miss baking with my brothers. I miss having very ill conceived flour fights. We were frugal with our grain just as much as anyone else, but this one day we got caught up in trying to smear it on each other. My mother came in and we all got smacked. After that we were stealthier about it." He chuckles a little and then starts to wrap each foot up in a bandage.

"Did that happen a lot?"

"What the flour fights?" He replies. I shake my head and he looks down. "Well, after we got to be taller than her, she stopped smacking us around. The last few years we just dealt with her insults not her hand."

"Really." I say trying to say something that wouldn't be bad about his mother, because at the moment I wouldn't mind saying something really mean.

"Don't take it like I was abused or something, Katniss." He says a little frustrated. "She was just a little misguided about how to get things from people. My father always said it was better to get things with honey instead of vinegar." He thinks a moment and then laughs. "He just didn't know he was marrying vinegar."

I can't manage a laugh but I smile. He touches my cheek lightly and traces my lips.

"You haven't done that in a while." He whispers. My smile falls and I look down.

"Thank you." I hug him with more force than usually do. He tenses but then relaxes and holds me close to him.

"Do you want to sleep?" He asks when we pull away.

I take a deep breath. "I have to write it or I will just keep dreaming the same thing." No matter what I will feel like I've killed her, but maybe writing it down will give me a better perspective I tell myself.

He grabs the book from the table and brings it over to me with a pen. He sets it beside me.

"Do you want me to…"

"Stay with me." I interrupt him.

"Always." He tells me.


	3. Chapter 3

**This was sort of requested by ThisLittleDeath. She wanted to see Peeta upset or his struggle. I will write more of his issues, but Katniss…well I feel a really strange kinship to. **

**Anyway, ThisLittleDeath is writing a story too about such things called Recovery and Relapse. It's really good. I'm a big fan. Please check it out and read it if you haven't already. **

**Just a reminder, this story will be a mature one just not yet. Yeah, read in between the lines there…**

**Please Review! **

All we wanted was some more time. Now we have it. Just too much of it.

We spend it by getting obsessed with the garden outside. Dark dirt covers our hands reminding us of those that we buried or the ones we couldn't. We try to brush it off but still the reminder doesn't really leave. We grow vegetables and herbs. We grow primroses. A lot of them. We can only spend so much time in the garden before that too hurts.

We work in the book of memories. We write and then rewrite our accounts. We use photos to illustrate it and when that's not available Peeta sketches it. We cry, we laugh, we remember. It's harder than the idea seemed like it would be. It's exhausting some nights. It's the only thing that keeps us going others.

Peeta bakes. He bakes so much he could feed a few families, and he does. He delivers bread to the workers in town who are trying to rebuild. I hunt and I too deliver to the workers and families who have returned. They are so thankful. But that doesn't make us feel anything except perhaps useful.

We start the day together. We eat breakfast. We are usually quiet. The dreams still haunt our hearts so early in the morning. We go our separate ways. He goes to his house to bake away and I to the woods to hunt. If we have a change in schedule, which we rarely do, we make sure to notify each other then. We hate not knowing where the other one is going to be. It's a residual effect from the Games.

We meet back up in the early evening. Greasy Sae makes us dinner and she leaves us alone. We talk about the day we've had. We keep it simple. The harder stuff happens too soon anyway as the night sneaks up on us. He tries to smile or joke around, and I try too. We succeed sometimes.

Then we write in the book. At first it was the easy happy stuff we wanted to make sure never got forgotten. We fight so hard to try to remember the good times, Peeta especially. I help him the best I can from what I know, but I realize how little I really knew of his family. What I did know about Peeta before the Games is from school and the information seems so very mediocre. He was good at sports, made pretty good grades, and was the fancy of many girls' eyes. I know that people even then liked him. But this is not what made me know him so well.

I get depressed sometimes when I realize in some ways I have to get to know him all over again. The same goes for him though I suppose. He forgets a lot. Past and present slips through his fingers so easily. We have to fight so hard just to keep him clear that what he feels for me is right. He fights an irrational fear and hatred of me. It's getting better, but still it's so unfair we have to battle it in the first place.

He just breathes through it. Sometimes if it's bad he has to clutch the back of a chair or wring his wrists. The pain, the pressure, whatever brings him back to me. Helps him focus.

He can hold me now without getting bad flashbacks. Sleeping in the same bed the last few weeks has helped that. We only physically touch each other it seems right before we sleep or if we are awoken by one of our nightmares. Sometimes during the day the comfort of touch is too overwhelming.

We've kissed a few times. It feels good. It feels right and I wish I could have felt that thing sooner. Maybe, just maybe, some things would have been different. I can't think like that though. That's when like Peeta I need focus so I pinch myself or grasp onto a wall. Trying to work things into another equation just makes me that much aware that I'm helpless to change the way things turned out.

My mother calls. There is nothing I can do for her but answer the line. She wants to make sure I'm okay. That's all. Her life is in District Four and is dedicated to forgetting every person she ever loved.

We take care of Haymitch who most days could care less how we are doing. Then some days he straightens up and comes to dinner. He writes in the book. Tells us stories we've never heard before. We never can predict the day he will emerge or how he will act. He's even more sullen here. Distant. I think sometimes he is the loneliest person I know. Maybe Peeta and I are tied for the second loneliest.

It's late and dinner is still on the table uneaten. I'm waiting for Peeta to come back home. I try to calm myself. I tell myself little stories of how Peeta is still delivering the last of his bread. But then it's really late to be delivering. Or perhaps he's painting one of the newly constructed buildings. But then it's too dark for painting. I think of a thousand plausible things he could be doing, but somehow I know all of them are wrong.

I leave the food. Leave the hope he's coming home on his own. I exit the front door and decide the best place to start is his house. Down the street I can see his lights on. I have to slow my legs down from breaking into a run. I need to make sure he's okay. He's still here. Still mine.

I feel strange knocking on the door since I never got in the habit of doing it. We all just walked into each other's houses anyway. After I knock for a solid minute I decide to go with tradition. The door is unlocked. I open it slowly suddenly scared of what I might find.

I hear a sound. It's quiet but constant. It's the sound of defeat. Hopelessness. I swallow down my instinct to run away from such sadness. I take each step carefully.

He's there in the kitchen crumpled on the floor. On every counter there is a tray of cookies. They look like butter cookies but I'm unsure. I feel the heat of the still raging oven and the sorrow from the grieving man in front of me.

I approach him slowly but I make sure not to be quiet about it. The last thing I need is to scare him with my presence.

"Peeta." I manage out lowly. He cries a little harder. In his hand is a crushed cookie. I kneel down in front him.

"Peeta…what happened?" I whisper. It's like I'm talking to a child not an adult.

He doesn't look up to me and I wonder if he's lost in a flashback and not sure if I'm there at all.

I sigh out in frustration. As gently as I can I run my hand over his. That's when I feel and see the angry red burn marks on the palms of his hands. Its looks like he shoved one of the cookie sheets. I turn to the slightly open oven and see scattered cookies on the sheet burning. I leave Peeta for a moment and turn off the oven.

"I'm not done yet!" He suddenly shouts behind me. I turn around to find him standing enraged. "I'm still working!"

I'm frightened by him. He looks more than angry. He looks deranged. He tries breathing but it doesn't work. I see him grab at his wrist and then he presses into the burns on his palms. I can do nothing but stand there and watch him torture himself. He gulps down air and settles into a more normal rhythm.

"Peeta." I say lowly to get his attention.

"My family is dead. Real or not real?" He asks me.

My eyes fill with tears for some reason. I think I'm sad for him. I know this feeling he's feeling now. At this moment Peeta has beat me as the second loneliest person in the world.

"Real." I answer. I clear my throat hoping my tears will stay in place. His hands cover his face and stays like that for a minute.

"It was my fault. Real or not real?" He drops his hands and stares at me with such intensity I feel pinned and ready to run at the same time.

"No. Not real." I quickly respond.

"Was it yours?" His voice suddenly is filled with accusation. He catches himself and closes his eyes and presses on his burns again.

"I don't know Peeta. I really don't know."

I want to tell him of course that it was my fault. I was the reason they punished every single person that ever touched my life. But I know this would probably start something in me that would be too selfish to ask him to stop right now.

I wipe the tears that fall down my face with merciless ease. "I'm so sorry. If I could save them, all of them…" My hands are all over my face trying to rid myself of the sorrow and tears. No matter how many I wipe away double the amount fills my eyes.

"Why?" He questions to no one in particular. He's crying again. Sobbing. "Why did this happen? Why couldn't they have just left us alone?"

I watch him before I break and go to him. I am at first hesitant and only stand in front of him. I tentatively wipe away one of his tears and he pushes my hand away. The act is hostile so a back up a step. I wait and watch him calm his rage down again. He cries into his hands for a few moments and then surprises me by launching himself on me with a hug. He holds onto me so tight his weight is too much and we slide down to the floor again.

I cry with him because there is nothing else to do. We stay like this for so long I've lost the idea of time. When finally he seems to have let out all his anguish I pull back. I brush his hair out his eyes. I make a note to remind him to cut it. I look around and start making plans for all these cookies. I'm unsure if he ever planned on giving them away but surely they must be now. I look back to him and he is calm. He is himself again only very fatigued.

I kiss his cheek and he turns so that I kiss his lips. We meet our lips a few times together before he seems exhausted by even that. I'm surprised I want to continue kissing him. There is a surreal and distracting comfort to it.

"Peeta…why did you bake all these cookies?" I say surveying once more the kitchen filled with cooking trays.

"My mother." He answers quietly.

"Was it her favorite?" I try to get more information from him. He looks up to me and around the kitchen as well.

"Yes." He looks back to his hands. "I was doing fine and then…then the flashbacks came. They were really strong about my family, District 12, the torture. Then there was you." His eyes still glisten from his previous tears.

"I tried to think of you Katniss to distract myself, but then…it just turned out bad. I got frustrated and I think that's when I burned myself." His confession is hard to hear. I don't want to hurt Peeta anymore than I already have and now it seems I'm helpless to it.

"Let me see." I point to his hands which he is cradling in his lap. He lets me examine them. They are burned badly but I have some burn ointment at home that will help.

"I'm sorry." I apologize to him. I'm sorry that I can't help him as much as he has helped me. I'm sorry that I've hurt him the way I have. I'm sorry that I couldn't stop the Capital from hurting him worse. There is just too much to be sorry for.

"It's not your fault." He whispers.

I help him up and sit him at the counter. I start putting the cookies in bags. He tells me he was planning on giving it to the workers tomorrow as a treat. I smile at him for his thoughtfulness and he just looks back with the same sadness. I turn around to keep working.

"You know you are all that I have left." His voice hits me in such a hard way. I pause what I'm doing and bite my lip from answering back too soon. Instead I nod. I breathe a moment before I admit to him the same.

"You are all I have as well, Peeta."

That night we put away dinner without eating it. Neither of us can stomach an appetite. We skip writing in the book and go straight to bed after I treat his hands with the burn ointment. And then I wrap them carefully and try to avoid touching them.

When we are in bed he is distant. He doesn't cuddle up to me as he usually does. I realize that he is always the one making the first move. Always the one putting himself out there. I watch him for a few minutes before a resolve to be braver and more compassionate. I move slowly towards him until I'm right next to his warm body.

He watches me intently as put my arm around his waist. His eyes close when he sees that I'm leaning into kiss him. He kisses me back with restrained passion as I still feel the grief there. When I pull away I lay on his chest. He takes his arm and wraps it around me.

I think about how much he is hurting right now. I consider how I feel when I'm so far down in the dark. My life is an easy thing to give up when I'm like that. I fear that he sometimes feels that killing himself is a way to relieve pain as I do. I care nothing for my life, but Peeta should be alive. Peeta should be happy and taken care of and needed. I still don't know if I'm the right person for it, but I want to try to so bad that it's all I think about these days.

"I need you with me always." I close my eyes when I confess this to him. It feels like a lot to give away. Its feels like I've said too much or said the wrong thing.

"I need you too, Katniss."

We sleep quietly with hardly any nightmares. They had already shown up during the day anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

This is set a week or two from the previous chapter. Don't worry about Peeta's hands. They are healed. LOL!

Sorry I haven't posted lately. I have been really sick.

This chapter is filled with fluff. I kinda like the angst stuff better, but it's nice to let loose sometimes. Hope you like it.

Thanks so much to all who have already reviewed. It helps me write. I will start answering back. Thanks!

**Please Review! **

We've laid out some blankets in the front yard and are trying to watch stars and the full moon. It was Peeta's idea to relax, but I've gone along with it. The weather is cool so we are bundled up, but still I need more warmth. I debate with myself for a good five minutes before I roll over and put my head on Peeta's chest. His arms wrap around me and I'm safe.

"I was wondering how long that would take." I can feel him smiling into my hair.

"Oh, be quiet." I don't sound as light as he does. I sound like I'm in a bad mood, but somehow Peeta knows I'm trying to joke and he laughs. He's been able to do it more lately and I'm envious of him for it. He's a lot more resilient than I am.

"I talked to my mother again." I bring up casually.

"Yeah. How is she?"He asks.

"Well, I guess busy. She's…I don't know. Part of me thinks she is trying to work so hard and so long that she'll never have to think about them…again."I have to pause because even mentioning my Father and Prim gives me too much to hurt about. "Maybe she doesn't even want to think about me."

"I'm sure it's not like that, Katniss."

"She told me she was happy that she didn't need to worry about me with you and Haymitch around. Which a lot of good he's been. I feel like we take care of him more than the opposite." Now I'm in a bad mood.

My mother off in District Four living her life as if the people that she most loved hadn't both died tragically and uselessly. I guess everyone handles grief differently. Her favorite way was to work herself half to death, and mine was to be self destructive and dream about dying. I'd say we were one screwed up family but then I didn't see her as family anymore. She was just someone I used to know…or at least at some point wanted to know. Probably more like someone I used to help take care of. But still I loved her just the same.

I'm left now not caring about her or trying to not, because I feel abandoned. I feel worse than that. I feel like since I've not died I'm an inconvenience to her. I'm just something else she could possibly mourn.

"I know it's easy to be angry with her, but she is troubled too. She couldn't even mention District Twelve or anything from her old life besides you when she left for Four." Peeta tries to remind me.

"Yeah…well I guess avoidance is something she is used to." I say with finality because this conversation is always going to be an unfair one. Unfair to me because Peeta's parents are dead so he has no idea how they would react to something like this. But then again it's also unfair to him for the same reason. At least I still have one parent, no matter how useless it is.

We let the air fill back with the noises of the creatures of the night instead of our voices. It's really beautiful out here and I begin to think that Peeta was onto something when he suggested this. I snuggle into him closer still.

I have tried to become more affectionate with him but sometimes it's hard to fight both our demons. Mine being that I still feel sometimes like I don't deserve him and his being that he at one point thought our whole relationship was a lie and I wanted him dead. The Capital stole so much from our lives and they still steal away from us to this day. Our problems will never just disappear. We have to work through them every single hour, sometimes every single minute. Once we surrender to the idea that nothing is ever going to be the same the better we will be.

"We had to take guard on the beach together in Quarter Quell. Real or not real?" He breaks the silence that had overcome us.

"Real." I say hesitantly confused as where this was going. I know that we've talked about this memory before, but repetition seems to help him keep the memory right.

"There were a lot of stars like tonight? A big moon as well?" I look up to see him with a quizzical expression. Trying to remember I suppose.

"Yes, I think so." I answer him back. "Do you remember what you gave me that night?" I ask trying to guide him along.

"The locket." He says after a few moments of pondering. "I tried so hard to get you to let me protect you. I guess it wouldn't have helped anyway with everyone else's plans." His hands make fists and I'm sure he's going to need a moment to collect himself but he relaxes soon after. He's getting better at controlling his emotions.

"You kissed me that night. Really kissed me." He looks down at me. "Like you meant it."

I look away from him. I will forever feel bad that I didn't fall in love with him sooner. Didn't express myself better. I always feel guilty that he loved me for so long and I sat there either oblivious or ambivalent.

"You kiss me like that now." I try to bring my eyes back to his but I can't. "Real or not real?" He whispers to me.

I don't answer him. I decide to be brave and to show him. I scoot my body up until my face is aligned with his. I kiss him tenderly, slowly. It lasts for a minute or two before some sense of urgency grips Peeta. I'm rolled onto my back and I'm feeling the same need as he is suddenly. It's a new and strong feeling that overtakes me but there is an inkling of familiarity to it. Perhaps what happened in the Quell was only a taste of what I could feel with Peeta.

One arm wraps around my waist while the other is cupping my neck. I can feel his fingers gripping my hair and his breath on my face. We are both panting. I can't seem to make my breath last long enough to kiss him the way I need to at this moment. My hands grip his shoulders trying to get him closer.

His tongue inside my mouth makes me make a strange sound in my throat because the feeling and taste of him is too much. But the noise only seems to egg Peeta on and soon he is hovering over me. His hand ghosts over my curves and I feel alive and scared all at the same time. He kisses me hard with so much passion that I think I see stars in the darkness behind my closed eyes.

He stops suddenly breathing heavily and looking around.

"I'm sorry." He says. "I kind of forgot where we were." He rolls away from me.

I had forgotten too. I think of who could have walked by and seen us. Perhaps only Haymitch but that would have been humiliating enough.

"It's okay." I assure him. It would have been embarrassing as hell to be caught in such a position, but he wasn't the only one unaware of our location.

And then I feel my lips lift. A smile? Am I really smiling? And then a sound I hadn't heard in such a long time escapes me. A chuckle. I'm laughing. I'm actually laughing. I think how funny it would be if poor drunk Haymitch came across us basically making out. He would probably gag.

I look over to see Peeta staring at me. He wears a smile as well but his eyes are teary. I calm down immediately fearing something is wrong with him.

"What's wrong?" I whisper. He sits up on his elbow.

"Nothing." He shakes his head and quickly wipes away a tear. "Nothing at all. I'm…well…I'm happy."

I reach up to his face and wipe away another tear. He traces my lips and I lift them again for him. A smile only for him. He kisses me softly and with an intense reverence.

I soak up his presence and the love he gives me. He is the only one who can make me smile anymore. It's an act so human, so precious but I was sure I would never do it again even occasionally. There is not much in my life that I can say without a doubt that I've done right. But I know in this moment that keeping Peeta was one of the best things I'd ever done.


	5. Chapter 5

**This is a dark chapter but I promise a good loving in the next. I have already started it. I PROMISE!**

**I listened to the On the Nature of Daylight from Shutter Island soundtrack to write this chapter. You can find this song on YouTube. **

**This was extremely hard for me to write in spaces, but you will see why. Grief is the hardest thing I've ever fought in my life. Perhaps it's why I favor angst, I'm often consumed with it. **

**Thanks so much to all those who review. Its helps me write and brightens my day. **

**Please Review**

We are working late in the book. I have decided to write anything and everything I remember about Rue. I think of how tiny she was, but agile and strong. I think of how kind and innocent she was. I continue the comparison to my sister, and I wonder if they would have been friends. I wish I could have saved them both so I could have found out. I'm not sure but perhaps what if whatever happens when you die or wherever you go you meet people you were supposed to in life.

I then have an idea. Something that will somehow heal and hurt me at the same time. I ask Peeta to paint Rue and Prim together. I tell him to set it in a meadow with a thousand flowers. He looks unsure when I begin, but as I continue with the details I want and need he slowly nods his heads and promises me to do it.

He hides it from me asking that I wait until he is completely done. I try to be patient, but I often wander into the room we have set up for his painting projects. There in the center of the room is the painting I fear and also desperately want to see. It is covered with a white sheet. I think to myself that if I get closer I could probably see through the material. I would perhaps see only the colors he is using and that is all, but that would be enough. I feel the need to quell my curiosity but I just stand near the threshold. I feel the promise I made Peeta to wait hold me back. Its stings but I walk away.

Life goes on as I wait and sometimes it hurts. I find myself going in and out of stages that my good old doctor over the phone call the stages of grief.

First, there is denial and isolation. Apparently, this is what I did when I first came back to District 12. I did not want to feel or think of anything. I didn't want to believe and therefore I had worked myself into some strange trance. Sometimes I will fall into this again by simply staying in bed and clearing my mind. I pretend silly things like floating alone in an ocean just so I don't have to think about my life or what it's become. But Peeta will often interrupt me and drag me out of bed. There have only been a few times he has been unsuccessful.

Second, there is anger. Yes, this I have felt. Anger that Prim died. Anger that my father died. Anger that Rue died. Anger that Madge died. Anger over everyone who died in the fires of District 12. There is so much anger for the numerous people who died. I feel anger towards myself because somehow or another they were connected to me. Sometimes, well most of the time, I feel like their deaths are my fault. Their blood is on my hands.

There is anger towards Gale of course. I know in my heart that he never intended for his grotesque plans to be made use against our own people, but he perpetuated them nonetheless. He is one of the reasons why Prim and all those children are dead. Not only were they killed but they were massacred. Their deaths were something that should never be suffered through. I find myself unable to reconcile with the fact that he was even indirectly behind it. I've lost my best friend over it.

There is limitless anger that goes toward two people who are dead and deserved it. President Snow and President Coin. I know they have paid for what they did to my family and to the people that surrounded me. I know that they will be judged by whatever power made this world. I don't know if I believe in a soul but I have to believe that some good out their paid attention to their evil. I have to believe that their deaths were not a relief like I have thought death to be in my own situation. I have to believe their deaths were a hell bestowed upon them to suffer forever.

Third, there is bargaining. I have often wondered if I could have just traded my life for the many of those that lost theirs. What is the purpose for me to live if it seems everyone I love or care about just gets taken away from me? Maybe if I had swallowed those berries during the first Games that I would have freed so many people to live. But how do you strike up a bargain like that. You can't and it's more frustrating than I could imagine anything being.

Fourth, there is depression. I'm often in this stage. I get stuck in this stage. I breathe this stage. Peeta goes through these stages with me but at his own pace. But somehow we often find each other in depression. The other stages we usually experience privately, but this stage has become ours. No one can understand like Peeta understands. Simply his presence can comfort me when I get stuck here.

Although he can comfort me, he can't always take me out of it. And sometimes the depression is not so obvious. I won't realize that my heart has sunk and that my mind is numb. I will go through the motions without a name to my indifference. I will be unaware that my apathy is at all related to my grief because there is so much pain I can't name it with one word.

Then there is acceptance. I don't know if or when I will reach this stage. Sometimes I think it a case of impossibility. How does one accept all this darkness? What does that even look or feel like? The idea scares me because it makes me think I will forget, and I can never forget. I can never believe that I am safe again. And I will always remember that I am responsible.

I'm sitting alone watching the sunset on the porch. I've propped my feet up on the railing and leaned back in my chair. I'm not sure if I feel relaxed or content. I'm not sure if I'm feeling anything at all. The sun sinks slowly behind the outline of the darkened trees. It reminds me of Peeta. He paints sunsets more than anything else and they almost always look like the ones here, our home.

I hear the door open but keep my eyes trained on the horizon. One blink of an eye and you will miss the sun disappearing. I've learned this lesson from a dozen different experiences. He sits in the chair next to me, and its then out of the corner of my eye that I see that he is holding something. He scoots forward and leans against the railing the painting.

A symphony of color and image invade my eyes. He's captured them both so perfectly. Facing me they are holding hands with twin smiles. They wear pretty white dresses with flowers in their hair. The meadow is beautiful with a million blossoms. In a burst of orange and dark yellow the sun sets behind them.

I'm wholly unprepared for what this revelation does to me. I don't hear anything. I don't feel anything. I just see. My body so overwhelmed by this tragically beautiful sight that I cut off all of my other senses. That's why I'm surprised to realize that I'm on the floor kneeling in front of the painting with Peeta holding me. My hearing slowly comes back and I hear that I'm sobbing ugly mourning cries. The sound is so disturbing to me that I don't account it as my own.

It's not just the pain that rushes back to me now, but it's also the way these children made me feel. I was but a child in most eyes when I took it upon myself to take care of them both, but somehow I feel such intense maternal feelings for Rue and Prim that it's like a knife in my heart losing them. I couldn't save them. I just couldn't.

Memories rush into my mind of every little thing. Prim cuddling with Buttercup. Rue smiling at me over a fire. Prim hugging me for no reason. Rue clinging to me while sleeping. And then I think of all the things they will never experience in this changed world. There is no second chance, no realization of freedom. There is just nothing for them, but me remembering how much I loved them.

He whispers things to me. He loves me. He's here. But never it's okay. He knows better that it's not. I hold onto him tighter but I can't rip my eyes away from his work. It's the most emotionally compelling thing he's ever painted and I can't seem to express that to him yet with words. I'm sure he understands the sentiment though with my tears.

It's dark suddenly and the small porch light is the only thing that illuminates us. He pulls away from me and grasps my face with both hands. He kisses my tear stained cheeks just like he did the night I admitted my love for him. I cry harder but for a different reason now. Here a man who loves me so much has poured himself into this image just for me. A man who sacrificed himself many times has somehow done it again but in a different way.

"It's beautiful." I finally whisper after I've calmed down. "It's perfect."

I trace my finger lightly over the raised areas of paint. I trace the girls and their hands together. This is how I imagine them now; together, safe, and happy.

"Thank you." I hold him close and kiss his neck. "Thank you so much."

He doesn't respond. He only holds me tighter and allows himself to cry with me.

When finally we have finished our mourning we go inside and hang the picture in the living room. We stare at it hanging in its place and we sigh at the same time. It's a sigh of pain because we both miss so many people who are lost to us, and also because we can now hold hope to imagine they are at peace.

Peeta takes my hand and we go up to our bedroom. And I say it is our bedroom without hesitation because I would loathe losing another person I love, especially over my ambivalence. I will cling to him even tighter because he is the last of them. The last of those I have loved.

When I sleep that night I dream of Rue and Prim in their meadow running, picking flowers, and dancing around. I stand there inside their dream world and simply watch. Suddenly the girls see me and wave with huge smiles. I can hear their laughter float like a melody on the wind. Rue turns around first and starts running away towards the setting sun. Prim hesitates as she stares back at me. Her big eyes implore me to understand, or perhaps to accept. I gasp at the idea and whisper, "No."

Her smile is sad and I feel the failure in my heart that I always do when I think over the loss of my sister. She reads my mind someone how and shakes her head in disapproval. Her face looks so peaceful and radiant. I am mesmerized by it.

Rue calls her and waves her hand to signal Prim to follow. I shake my head and try to reach out for her but I can't move from my spot.

She smiles at me warmly and mouths 'I love you' before blowing me a kiss. She turns around and starts running towards Rue. She only turns around once to smile and laugh.

She leaves me alone in the meadow but I wake up with Peeta. He is asleep and turned toward the other side. I sidle up next to him and hold onto him as if he is prepared to run away like the girls. He just breaths deeply, calmly.

I am not alone.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Sorry that it has been awhile. I have been moving and all that jazz. **_

_**I wanted to thank all those who have been reviewing. If I haven't answered back a review from you I will work extra hard this chapter to. **_

_**I know that I'm more of an angst writer, but I wanted something a little light hearted and sexy for this chapter. There will still be angst, I just felt like a break. **_

_**Please tell me what you think. Please REVIEW! **_

_**Thanks so much! **_

Time goes by slowly and fast at the same time sometimes. It drags with memories weighing us down, reminding us bitterly of all the reasons we should be sorrowful or fearful. We fight through as we have always done. We save each other as we have always done.

It is sometimes hard to be as affectionate as I'm sure Peeta wants me to be. Occasionally it takes all that I have. It's not because of Peeta that I'm this way. There is such a tough exterior to me now, even worse than before. The sunshine of life is rarely let it. But I'm not the only one changed and even Peeta struggles with any kind of happiness at times. It's as if we are always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

We are getting ready for bed and Peeta is settling himself to wrap his arm around my waist. My shirt has hiked up a little revealing some of my skin. He brushes my side accidently and I giggle. I actually giggle. This strange little sound always elicits such pleasant reactions from him. He smiles back at me with unrestrained joy. I'm instantly embarrassed.

"What was that for?" He teases.

"Nothing." I shake my head. I would hate if Peeta knew my secret. I was ticklish.

"Nothing, huh? Katniss, you don't laugh for no reason." He scoots closer to me leaning on his elbow. "You're not ticklish…are you?" His smile is mischievous and dangerous.

"No, not at all." I lie badly.

He lifts his hand and I try to prepare myself to act indifferent to his touch. But once he caresses the skin right under my ribs where the burn scars aren't as present I laugh again. The sound is totally involuntary and it feels awkward, but it makes Peeta so happy. He uses more force and tickles me mercilessly. I beg him to stop and he concedes.

"That wasn't very nice, Peeta." I say but I don't sound serious. I sound breathless.

"I'm sorry." He says and goes in for a kiss.

I know though once I feel him smiling into the kiss that he's going to try again. I hold his hand back protecting my sensitive skin. He laughs and struggles against me to get at my ticklish spot again.

"No!" I'm chuckling because the look on Peeta's face is comically determined. My mind goes blank and I focus in on this moment alone. I feel light and oddly free. I'm too wrapped up in Peeta to remind myself about how heavy and miserable I should feel.

We lightly wrestle around in bed. I'm playing defense until I see a patch of skin from Peeta's ridden up t-shirt. I zero in on it and before I know what I'm doing I'm trying to tickle Peeta's stomach. He pauses and just smiles at me.

"Nice try, but no Katniss." He is hovering over me so I take my hands and try to tickle him near his ribs where I am ticklish. But things have calmed down. We aren't laughing. The only sound in the room is both of us trying to catch our breath.

He doesn't laugh when I try again so I move my hands over his body slowly trying to think of another place. His eyes grow dark and it makes me shiver. I try underneath his arms but he just stares back at me with this smug smirk.

The smirk disappears when my hands begin to explore in earnest. I have forgotten my beginning mission. I can only concentrate on the expanse of Peeta's skin. There is the smooth soft skin that I can feel goose bumps form. Then there is the scarred skin that has its own kind of beauty. It's the beauty of survival.

I bunch his t-shirt up before I look up to him for permission. He nods his head allowing me to take his shirt off completely. I gulp down my insecurity and fear. I'm not sure what I'm doing but I suddenly feel like I need to see him, feel him this way.

I push on him gently and he rolls over for me on his back. I am meditating on a particularly intricate scar when I notice a patch of his smooth skin nearby has pebbled under my attention.

"Are you cold?" I ask concerned I was making him uncomfortable.

"No." He answers.

I'm confused for a moment until I come to an understanding. The way that Peeta makes me feel might be the same way I make him feel. I trace over each muscle contemplating this.

"Peeta?"

"Mhmm." He responds back looking thoroughly relaxed.

"What does it feel like when I kiss you?" In some ways I wish I hadn't asked the question. It's hard enough for me to describe what I feel when we kiss let alone allow it to take over me.

"It feels like…" He takes a moment to gather his thoughts. I become nervous that I won't hear what I want to hear, but even I'm unsure as to what that might be.

"Sometimes I lose my breath just thinking about touching you."He pauses gathering more words. I struggle with my instinct to shut down or worse, blush.

"I have to concentrate so hard on the feeling when you kiss me because I feel like sometimes you want to pull away before I'm ready." I don't say anything to this because I know it's the truth.

"I memorize the feeling of your mouth. Soft, warm…sometimes needy. I file it away into a safe place where no amount of torture could ever touch it." His hand traces my face and I have a feeling he is memorizing the contours of it.

"I try so hard to remember because I don't ever want to ever forget again how it makes me feel." He breathes out as if what he's saying is harder than I think it is. It doesn't seem that way to me at first glance though, but then Peeta has always been good with his words.

"It makes me feel safe, loved, and free. So very free because I thought this feeling was taken away from me forever." The room falls silent again as I notice something rise up in me.

He almost lost what I had taken advantage of for so long. I can't imagine feeling confused as he was over my feelings for him. I was confused in my own way for a time, but his confusion was so tragic. I couldn't imagine thinking of Peeta as my enemy.

My hand has been ghosting up and down his chest the entire time he was confessing. I can't stop touching him. Can't stop the emotion I have creeping up on me knowing he feels like I do, and somehow I have the ability to put him so at ease.

I look away for a moment scared of what I'm going to say. Because once I say it I won't be able to take it back and I won't be able to stop saying it. He knows because I've expressed it, but not directly. It's not that I don't want to either. I really do. I want him to know without a shadow of a doubt that I've picked him. I want him to know he's the only one and honestly there has never been another threat if I really admit the truth.

"I…" Hesitation strangles me for a moment. "I love you, Peeta." He reaches and stills the hand preoccupied with moving across his body. He sits up. His hand nestles in my hair and pulls me closer.

"I love you, Katniss." We kiss languid and intense.

I feel the irrevocable change in us already and I can't bring myself to feel anxious or regretful over it. He lies back down and I follow him never giving up his mouth. The hunger, or the need as he called it, sings clear and strong and I hang onto like I'm proud of it. I never let anyone in but I let him in. That's something to have pride over.

He rolls over and I'm under him. This is my favorite way to have him. His body covering mine is like a warm blanket on such a cold night. He makes me forget and feel things that are so surreal yet the truest things I have found.

I move my legs and he moves so he is settled in between them. I gasp when I realize the intimate position we are in. He pulls back slightly and looks at me. His eyes speak concern as if he thinks that I'm uncomfortable. He has misread me though because to me he feels like he was always supposed to be exactly where he is now. I pull him down and kiss him with all the fierce passion I can muster.

Something changes in me. I want him. All of him. I don't know what this means or where it's going to lead but I'm too carried away to think about that right now. I am consumed with the idea that there is nothing that will stop us either. No Hunger Games, no war. Just us. I run my hands all over his shirtless body. I'm obsessed with feeling the warmth of him. It intoxicates me and my hips push up to meet his in some primal move. He moans and I feel triumphant for some reason.

Peeta is just as eager as I am. His hands begin to wander down my sides. At first I'm perplexed over what he wants but when he caresses the side of my breast through my shirt I understand. Slowly and carefully his hand moves to cover me. His touch ignites my skin in a fire and I begin to wonder if he knows what he's doing because I don't.

My breath picks up with a puzzling mix of fear and longing. He groans again, but this time much louder. Suddenly, I'm pushed into reality and my desire becomes more rational. My insecurities creep in and I slow down.

"Are you okay?" He asks me when he feels the change. I nod my head and try to catch my breath. He knows instinctively to stop because he doesn't continue.

"That was…intense." He says softly. I nod my head again.

"Was it okay…I mean…is it okay…that…" He is silenced by my kiss. My hands run through his hair and I feel him melt into me again. It's a different intensity now.

"I like being close to you." I whisper feeling like I've let go of another secret.

He rolls away from me and onto his back. He gathers me into his arms and gently kisses the top of my head. I watch for a long time as his chest slowly stops heaving from our excitement. The blood in my veins still races though as if there is some point to all of this that was not met. I want to ask Peeta how he feels, but my heart has closed down for the night. I can only open up one step at a time.

"By the way…" Peeta begins.

"What?" I look to him. He smiles.

"My feet are where I'm ticklish." He admits almost proudly. I laugh pure and free. I don't feel embarrassed about it this time.


	7. Chapter 7

_**Sorry guys. After moving and then getting two jobs I have been really busy and stressed. This chapter took way too long to write and I fear that I might have messed something up. My confidence is like zero at the moment. So…review : ) Good or bad. Whatever. **_

_**Thanks so much for everyone who has stuck with this story. Your loyalty and patience astound me. I will try and get working on another chapter immediately. If you have a suggestion or request please leave it in a review or message me. I am also working on a Peeta/Katniss lemon one shot from Catching Fire. Be on the lookout for that.**_

_**Please REVIEW and place me in your AUTHOR ALERT.**_

I dream differently. I dream of his hands on me. They caress and hold tight to me. I'm not scared or hesitant in my dreams. We say and do things I've never even contemplated and yet I'm intrigued by them. I imagine his bare skin on my bare skin. I imagine what would happen if we let go of control. Where would that lead? My mind let's me think of all kinds of scenarios. I allow it in my sleep state. There I am his and he is mine with no obstacle. When I awake my inhibition has reappeared.

I look out the window over the expansive yard while I do dishes at the sink. The warm water rushes over my hands and it contrasts to the cold porcelain of the plates. I'm home in the middle of the day. Peeta is still in town baking. He's recovered the old site of his parents' bakery and has rebuilt his own. The whole process happened rather quickly. I'm proud of him, but I miss him during the day. I miss being able to walk next door to watch him work. We had converted his house into the bakery since we lived together anyway in my house. That lasted for a good while until Peeta told me his wishes.

I hate going into town. It makes my skin crawl and also makes me aware of the responsibility I hold of so many people's deaths. I avoid going into town as much as possible. Even the idea of going to see Peeta's bakery puts me on edge.

I don't understand why he needed to rebuild on the old bakery site. I would not want to rebuild on the black flattened remains of my house, but then I don't exactly want to be in this Capitol house either. The only reason I stay is that Peeta has made it bearable.

Peeta has handled going back into town pretty well even though he sometimes struggles with flashbacks. The horrific flashbacks that involve me are triggered as well. We suspect that the new stress he's invited in has made them worse. He has been having a hard time being close to me in the last few weeks since the bakery has opened. I feel such a strong sense of loss from the absence of his touch that it hurts to be around him at times. I dream of the time when he would hold me and kiss me. I dream and when I wake I fear he knows how desperate I am for him.

I would not have believed a word from anyone if they told me I would feel this way about a person. I thought my ability to love was lost with Prim, but somehow the experience of her death has made me love harder and not take it for granted. I still get scared or nervous with how well Peeta knows me. Sometimes I want to be a fortress closed to all. Then he will say or do something that makes me want to be completely known to him.

I find myself resenting him lately which only makes me feel exceedingly guilty. I hate that he's made me love him so much. I hate that he's made me want his touch, but then it is taken away from me because he wanted to carry on his family's legacy. In some illogical way I feel like he's chosen something over me. My shame devours me because I'm obviously not a mature enough person.

I finish the dishes and start drying them. When I turn to put them away I hear the door open and close. I figure its Greasy Sae dropping off some groceries. She still feels the need to take care of me, and it helps that I give her extra meat when I hunt. I don't turn around or stop what I'm doing. Her footsteps seem louder than usual and I sense something is off. When I finally do stop and turn I see it wasn't Greasy Sae but Peeta.

He is looking down at the ground and is leaning against the wall as if defeated. I take a step towards him and he looks up. I stop when I see his eyes. They are strange and filled with too many emotions to count. I'm afraid he might be in one of his flashbacks.

"I'm fine. It's not that." He says lowly as if he's reading my mind. "Already dealt with that today." He mumbles.

"What is it?" I ask cautiously.

"I just…miss you." He stands away from the wall and takes a small step toward me. "I'm sorry that I've not been able to be around, I just…"

"I know. The flashbacks." I can't hide the pain from my voice over this subject. I can't lie and say I don't wish that they weren't in our lives, and sometimes I fantasize as much.

"That and I'm just so focused on making this bakery a success. I feel like I will let my family down if I don't." He rubs his face with his hand and I can see the stress roll off of him in waves.

I can't think of what to say to him, what words to comfort him. Instead I do something so out of character. Perhaps it's because I hadn't touched him in such a long time or maybe my heart was softer than I thought. I slowly approach him afraid of rejection. I come close and lift my arms. I hug him. I really hug him like the mere act was going to save us both.

"God I missed you." He whispers hoarsely into my hair. His lips move toward my ear. "I love you. I really do, Katniss."

I try to push down the emotion that bubbles up in me that make me want to breakdown and tell Peeta how I've been feeling. I feel like if I reveal that much to him that I would ruin something inside him. I know he hasn't meant to hurt me, but he has anyway. Nevertheless I can't hurt him by letting him know that.

"I know, Peeta." I whisper back still holding onto him.

He pulls back and hesitates. I wonder if he's going to pull back or if a flashback is taking hold of him. I fear both. But slowly he closes the space between us. It's like a first kiss; soft, tender, and cautious. His mouth feels new but his taste is a welcome familiarity. Then he kisses me like I'm used to. More passion, more desperation. I suppose he kisses me like that because he's scared he won't be able to ever again. Product of so much tragedy I suppose.

His hands roam down my back, and soon as we become more intertwined they travel each curve of my body. My skin ignites and I want him to touch me, to really touch me.

"Do you have time? Are you on break?" I ask frantically.

"Yeah, I have a few hours." He answers back looking confused.

I grab his hand without an explanation and march him to our bedroom. I kiss him the second we clear the threshold and he responds eagerly if not surprised. I back us up to the bed and when I feel my legs hit the mattress I sit down and scoot myself on it. Peeta follows and soon we are lying side by side kissing. When I grab onto his shirt and take it off he looks startled. When I rip off my shirt revealing my bra he gapes. When I pull him over me he stops.

"Katniss, are you okay?" His hands caress the side of my face and I feel like I'm going to explode. He hadn't touched me like that in so long. I close my eyes and try to remember the question. I can feel his bare skin on my hands and it's very distracting.

"Katniss?"

"You haven't touched me…really touched me…in weeks Peeta." I open my eyes and see him staring down at me. "I missed it. I missed you."

He kisses me slowly, sweetly. I feel like I want to cry but I'm unsure as to why. Perhaps I need him more than I thought and it scares me but I can't stop. I can't stop needing or wanting him. I push away the emotions that make me want to breakdown. I've lost so much and I just want this one thing, this one security. I want his love, all of it.

We become more urgent, racing into the unknown. I feel his hands move slowly away from my face and start to travel up and down my side. His hand slope the curve of my hip, the dip of my waist. He keeps moving until he's right by my right breast. He pulls slightly away and I take a deep breath. His hand careful and nervous covers me. Then his thumb sweeps over me and I'm still amazed over how sensitive I am there. A small moan crosses my lips and he is kissing me again. His taste and touch in tandem is almost too much.

Soon he is touching me with unequaled fervor and I feel my heart race inside me. It's like my body is revving up to something I don't yet understand. He lies on his side and I instantly miss him, but he's not done yet. He grabs my leg and hitches it over his hip and his arms wrap around me. I feel so safe and loved.

I feel a sensation in the pit of stomach that I've only felt a handful of times in my life and most of them were with Peeta. This time it's strong and insatiable. He pulls me closers as if he knows that I need it. I feel how much he wants me and I'm overcome with a sense of triumph and also fear. He pushes against me. I instinctively push back. The feeling is so satisfying we are soon pushing against each other in rhythm. I struggle to keep the feeling of sweet abandon as he kisses me as if he could consume every part of me.

He rolls us over so that he is on top of me. The sensation of him against me like this takes my breath away. He makes a move to take off my bra and I gasp. I'm not ready for that and he sees it immediately. We pause, suspended in some kind of spell. We both are uncertain; I can see it in his eyes. Do we continue the dance? I know I feel as if the clothes we are wearing are horrible obstacles, but at the same time I can't fathom being able to go on. What would happen?

Making love to Peeta has crossed my mind of course. He's the only one that ever had that privilege. I'm not worried about any consequences like children since I have had multiple shots to make sure I didn't get pregnant for a long while when I was District Thirteen. They wouldn't want the Mockingjay actually with child. My mind races and becomes unfocused. He brings his hand up to my face again and caresses me once more bringing me back to the moment.

"We don't have to…" He swallows the rest of his words. I know he wants to as well as I do, but we are not ready. I then wonder if we will ever be able to let both of guards down enough to do that.

"I know." I finally respond relieving the strange tension that had entered our abandon. I bring him down to kiss me again. He moans a little and the sound makes me indescribably happy that I could elicit such reactions from him.

We spend the rest of the afternoon kissing and holding each other. Peeta eventually has to go back to the bakery. He is reluctant to go and I am reluctant letting him go. Before he goes I pull him aside. There is something I have to make sure he knows.

"You know," I take a deep breath feeling like I'm releasing more of my secrets. "You're the only one. The only one I've ever…wanted."I blush despite myself.

He smiles and looks down. I wonder if he is blushing too. He doesn't say anything for awhile and I'm afraid of two things. One, that he doesn't feel the same way about me despite evidence to the contrary. And two, that he has felt like this with someone else. I start to regret letting him know.

"Katniss, you are the only girl I could ever imagine being with…in anyway. You are definitely wanted." His smile is blinding and I smile back.

At the same time I hate myself for always doubting him. He is the one constant I have left. Why despite everything do I have a hard time trusting him?

"I love you." I volunteer because in the moment it feels good to say.

"I love you too." Peeta then kisses me one final time and leaves.

I am left alone with a warm feeling still consuming my body. I know that our relationship is changing. Sometimes it feels to fast. But this afternoon I'm confident that it was exactly what I needed.


	8. Chapter 8

_Hello! Thanks so much for reading and reviewing. Please continue._

_I am currently looking for a Beta at this time. Does anyone have a recommendation? Otherwise I will keep editing myself._

_You can find me on Twitter under **JackBadJuJu**. I will be posting chapter alerts there and maybe some teasers. I will tell you as well about stories, vids, and other things that I like or find out about in the Twilight, Hunger Games, The Host, and Doctor Who fandoms. So come and check me out._

_This chapter is really angst filled. Just a warning. You might really hate someone…sorry._

_Please **REVIEW** and place me in your **AUTHOR ALERT**._

I can't find her. I am searching with every ounce of myself that I can. This world is made up of dark blues, grays, and whites. Different shades, different distractions from my mission. I run till my legs feel like lead. My breathing comes in strangled spurts. My mind is aching trying to figure out where the hell I am. Why can't I find her?

I come into a building that is empty and dark. A long hallway sits in front me. It's illuminated only by tiny track lines that run on the floor. It feels creepy and hollow. As I turn back to the way that once was I see it is never to be again. I pound on the wall that hadn't existed only moments before. Whatever is down this hall I do not want to see it. I feel the overwhelming urge that whatever lay down that corridor has my deepest anger and pity.

I just want to find her. I just want to have my mind rest. I look down the hall once more and take a deep breath before venturing in deeper. As I get closer to the end I feel so many emotions at once that it's hard at times to distinguish one from the other. There is pain, resentment, love, compassion, anger, pity, and hope. None of it makes sense to me.

All I think of now is when I find her I'm going to hold onto her. My only guess is that I'm looking for Prim but can't comprehend being angry or resentful towards her. I keep moving but with cautious speed now. The lights start to brighten and my eyes become less trustworthy because of the onslaught. I keep going until the hall is nothing but white and there sitting in a chair is the person I'm looking for. I just know it.

I timidly walk towards the chair and when I round the corner I see my mother. In her arms is a baby wrapped in a blanket. She smiles up at me and then suddenly I'm at eye level with her. She holds the baby out to me.

"Katniss. This is your baby sister, Primrose." I recognize this memory from my childhood. Meeting Prim for the first time. But it turns out different because when she hands me the baby something happens and only a blanket lies in my arms. Horror courses through my veins and I search the room with extreme detail. I couldn't have lost my sister. A voice in my head sinisterly reminds me _'Again'_.

I look back to my mother and she is emotionless. "I let her go too soon." She says quietly looking down to her hands. She is silent for a long time before I put my hand on her arm.

"Mother?"

With venom in her voice she screams at me, "You did this!"

I wake up sweating profusely with a scream stuck in my throat. I hold onto my chest feeling as if my heart will race away from me in complete terror. I focus on breathing and calming myself down. When I look over to the other side of the bed I see Peeta is missing. I lament his absence. Whenever I have these kinds of dreams he can always talk to me, bring me back to reality.

After a few minutes I find the strength to go looking for Peeta. I wrap a blanket around me to combat the cold that has seeped into my bones. My feet drag on the ground wanting nothing more than to be stationary. But I have to find him. He always makes me feel so much better. Perhaps in the harsh light of day I simply would have toughed it out, but nighttime is such an enemy. I feel every inch of pain in myself and everyone I know woven into the night sky.

I find him in his art room. I think suddenly of the piece he painted for me that featured Rue and Prim. My throat is once more constricted but this time with sorrow not fear. He hasn't seen me yet and I consider not disturbing him, but I need him so much. I don't have it in me to fight this feeling off.

"Peeta." The sound from my mouth is combination of begging and hope. He turns around and looks at me at first with a small smile and then he knows. His smile turns into an expression of worry.

"Katniss, what's wrong?" He is by my side in a half a second. He strokes the side of my face. I look at him unable to express my pain.

"Another nightmare?" He whispers as if it's a secret we must keep between us. I try to nod but my heart feels so heavy that it weighs down the rest of me. He moves so quick reading me so well. His arms are around me sooner than I can register them.

I appreciate that he doesn't tell me that it was just dream. He knows the horrors I dream about and unfortunately they were all real. All real and all mine.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He offers even though he is just as disturbed as I am about my nightmares.

"No." My voice croaks in a very ungraceful way. I wonder if I'm crying. I realize my sight this entire time has been unnaturally blurred. Yes, apparently I am.

"Why are you up so late?" I ask him. I distinctly remember going to sleep with him.

"I never really went to sleep so I just stayed up." He replies with a sad shrug. He is getting together his supplies to paint.

Peeta lets me sit with him wrapped in my blanket while he paints a portrait of his brothers all by memory. I watch as he uses every paint brush with the purpose of working through his pain. I wonder what I am doing to be that progressive with my grief.

I find myself puzzling over the nightmare and wonder if it's about Prim or my mother. Perhaps it's about both. My stomach churns recalling the desperation I felt searching that hall, and the sheer terror and shock of Prim disappearing into nothing. But what makes me even more unsettled is the look in my mother's eyes when she knew I'd lost her. It was as if she really did believe it was my fault. Maybe she did. I know I blame myself.

"It was about my mother…I think." I finally admit lowly. He turns from his painting to bring all his attention to me. I love him for this.

"What about your mother?" He stands in front me waiting to help me in any way he can.

"I don't know…I…"I stop to sigh and think clearly without emotion clouding my memory. "I was running around this dark place searching for someone. At first I thought it was Prim but there were too many negative emotions that I was feeling." I take another moment to collect myself.

"It was my mother I was looking for. When I found her she had Prim as a baby in her arms. She handed her to me and Prim just…she just…" A sob escapes me. Peeta moves to hug me but I put my hand up stopping him. I needed to get the rest of it out.

"She disappeared. She just vanished right in front me. And then my mother blamed me." I let him hold me now. We stay like that for some time before he pulls away.

"When is the last time that you have talked to you mother?" His expression is compassionate but for some reason I am put on the defensive. What does it matter that I haven't talked to her in a long while? It's not like she was calling me either.

"It's been awhile." I answer trying not to let Peeta know what I am feeling inside.

"Maybe you should try talking to her. You'll probably find out that she doesn't blame you. I mean…she was one that let Prim go and…"He trails off thinking of the same images I am. The same images we lived through and then had to relive again with constant TV syndication of it.

I nod slowly and decide that I should talk to my mother, if only to see how she is doing. In the morning I shuffle downstairs. I am not looking forward to the call even though some part of me wants to hear my mother's voice. I want to believe that she will be comforting, but I know it's not the truth. It's my very unreal fantasy.

I dial the number slowly as if I can maybe avoid it if I am sluggish enough. But then the ring tone clicks and there suddenly is the ringing of the line. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Perhaps she is out at work. Or maybe she is in the garden. Or maybe she is in town. Or maybe…

"Hello?" She says with brighter voice then I have heard in a long time. It's so shocking to me that I don't hear her say hello several more times until it's almost too late.

"It's me. It's Katniss." I respond finally. My mouth is dry and my hands shake. What if she really does blame me?

"Oh…hello honey." Her voice I think holds some sort of pleasure in hearing mine. "How have you been?"

"Fine, I guess." There is a long pause and I am unable to think of way to end it.

"That's good." She says to fill the silence but it doesn't help.

"Peeta is doing well too. He's built his own bakery." Talking about someone else seems to help.

"Oh wow. Congratulations." There is once more that sort of happiness. I find myself confused.

"Thanks." I say stupidly. It's not like I was the one who did it. "How have you been doing?"

"I have been doing well. I was actually going to call you. "She moves the phone around and talks to someone in the background. It sounds like a child. "I…well…I don't know how to say this. I have…well…I have adopted a little girl. She was in District Twelve. Just born when..." We both know that she is referring to the bombing of Twelve. "She's about a year and half now."

And that's when I realize that it has been a year since I've returned to Twelve. A year. It feels like it slipped through my fingers. There was so much pain, but also some happiness. I give credit to Peeta for that. And then my mind tries to wrap around what my mother is telling me. She has a little girl now.

"I named…I named her…Rose." My stomach drops and I feel like throwing up. Is she replacing Primrose or something? My mind reels and I can't seem to stay in this moment. I just see Prim and her last moments.

"Katniss?"

"I'm here. Why would you name her that?" I can't seem to stop the accusatory tone out of my voice.

"Katniss." She says my name like I'm being unreasonable. "It's not like that. It just brought me a little…comfort. Is that so wrong?" I can hear my mother's tears.

I don't say anything. I can't manage a thought either. I just stare at the wall where the phone jack hangs innocently. It's not its fault that I'm hearing what I am, but I start to feel some rage against it. Ripping it out of the wall does cross my mind. When I look at the mirror across the way I can see my face is red and rippling with anger.

"Katniss I know you don't understand. It's not something I can explain either. I just…I wanted you to know. I won't push her on you like a sister."

"Well that's good." I'm pissed at this point. I can't imagine how I could even ask this woman if she finds me at fault with Prim's death. She apparently has moved on more quickly than I ever could. How is that possible?

"Okay." She doesn't continue with her speech.

"Listen, I got to go." I start to say goodbye.

"I do still miss her. I do still remember her. She was my…" I hear a sniffle. I know what she would have said. She was her favorite. The daughter she always wanted. I was always my father's daughter.

"Nothing will ever replace her, but this girl needed help."

Once more I am faced with some kind of strange moral dilemma. Is it wrong that my mother has moved on? Isn't that what my doctors always insisted I do? Is it wrong that she helped this little girl? I still can't seem to understand why she would name her that.

Something stirs inside of me and I want to know whether or not I'm at fault in her heart. I want to know and if this is the last time I talk to her then so be it.

"Do you blame me?" There is silence once more on the line. She knows exactly what I'm talking about. The silence lasts too long and I think it speaks volumes.

"I used to. I used to feel like you could do almost anything. Why couldn't you save her?" My heart drops below my feet and my throat once more is choked. It's a thought I've had many times.

"But I began to understand that you were just a child yourself. You…saved us in other ways. So my answer is no. I don't blame you. But…I still don't know if I'm ready to see you just yet."

Peeta walks into the room his faces drops into some kind defensive stance. It's as if he would beat the hell out of anyone who dares to bother me. I look once more to the mirror and find my face now swollen with tears. She broke me. She finally broke me.

"I have to go now." I simply place the phone back on the hook and walked away.

I sit down in the living room. When Peeta comes for me I stop him once more from comforting me. I stare out and imagine the huge open space between my mother and I. There was no relationship that I could recover or even endeavor to care about. So why does this hurt so much?

"Katniss. You have to let me in." Peeta interrupts my sorrow. I am unsure how long I've been catatonic but I see now that is mid afternoon.

"She's adopted a daughter. Named her Rose." The sound coming out my mouth seems far away. "And she said she wasn't ready to see me yet. Once she blamed me for Prim, but doesn't now."

I look over to see that Peeta has his fists tight and his head hangs low as if this information is just as painful to him. His breathing picks up. I know it must be affecting him. He still has a hard time controlling his emotions. I come back to reality for him.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you." I go to touch his arm but he moves away.

"No, I'm sorry. Just give me a minute." He swallows hard and breathes in and out.

I close my eyes and fight crying. I can't even have the comfort from him because of what's happened to us. I can't have the comfort from my mother because in some way she hates me. I can see my life being alone in this way.

But then…his arms are around me. His hand lays my head on his shoulder. He inhales deeply and relaxes. Maybe I won't be alone.

"I promise you Katniss, it wasn't your fault. It was never your fault." He whispers to me. His words strike a truth inside me. I believe him. I truly do.

"Thank you." I say lowly trying to hide my vast sea of emotion. I am tired of crying.

We go to bed in the middle of the afternoon having no solution over our situations. My father is dead, my mother doesn't want me around, and Peeta's parents are dead.

In bed when his chest presses against my back I feel the only family that I have left. I only hope I am the same for him.


	9. Chapter 9

Hello there.

So…still looking for a Beta. Any volunteers or recommendations? I have a few people in mind but I'm still a little nervous going for it.

Anyway, sorry if you see grammar mistakes.

Please check me out on Twitter at /#!/JackBadJuJu

I have like two legit followers. Thanks guys. Anyway I will be posting teasers, recommendations, and start conversations about the Hunger Games, Twilight, Doctor Who, etc.

This story rated M for a reason, and one of the reasons is in this chapter. Yes, there is a hint of lemony goodness in here. A little angst and a little fluff too.

PLEASE _**REVIEW**_ and place me in your _**AUTHOR ALERT**_. Thanks again!

The scent of the forest fills me. I breathe in deep and I am relaxed. In some ways since I've come back from the Games the woods will never be the same. Once upon time it was a place for me and my best friend, and before that for me and my father. I've lost my best friend though and my father is dead. Now it is only for me.

I think about how I can't seem to get the Games out of my mind to this day still. When I hunt by myself, which is always now, I can almost feel the chill of someone watching me going up my back. But there is no one now that cares what I'm doing in the forest. No one because they are all dead. No one because I killed them. Each face flashes though my mind and I wonder how did I become such a cold blooded killer?

My foot comes down too hard when my concentration drifts into memory. I scold myself for letting my mind wander when I'm hunting. That time is over now. Now there is only this…silence. Now there are only my haunting memories.

I quiet my thoughts and focus on the scene in front me. I've been tracking a herd of deer for some time. It's rare to get this many deer in one place so I plan to take down as many as I can or the biggest one there is. I just haven't figured out how in the world I'm going to drag it back home.

Then in front me about two hundred yards I see the family come out of the brush. There about six deer in the family, four females with a young adult male and a giant buck. I'm in awe of the buck. He's majestic and beautiful. I can tell what a powerful animal he is. I have to admit that I'm a little intimidated for some odd reason. I aim for him but then I'm reminded of something my father once told me. _Never go for the shot that might stop your next one._

I know if I kill this buck it might end this family right here right now. I pull back and go for the young male. The kill is clean and easy, at least for me it is. His family is spooked and runs quickly away never to look back. When I come up to his lifeless body I silently thank him for his sacrifice.

I manage to get his body over my shoulders, but I have to take more breaks than I would like to confess. When I finally make it home I'm exhausted, sweaty, and in a foul mood. I drop off the deer with Greasy Sae who offers to skin and section it for me if she gets to have some choice picks. I joke with myself that I didn't even know she knew what do with choice pickings. She does her job quickly, and then leaves to deliver the rest to some families we help out.

I take a long, hot shower. My shoulders and back are aching. I regret being so stubborn and hauling the deer all by myself. I could have easily hung it on a tree and gotten Peeta to help me. He can pick up huge sacks of flour like they are nothing, but I always feel like I ask too much of Peeta.

I don't ask anything from anybody if I can help it, but somehow I always feel like I use Peeta. He tells me he wants to help me. I can't fight my obstinate independence sometimes to let him.

I try to rub my sore shoulders myself but it's completely impossible. I give up and settle with being hunched over and in pain. I pull my robe on not bothering to put on my clothes other than my underwear. I couldn't imagine putting my bra on. I plan on recovering alone in my bedroom.

I walk back into the bedroom and find Peeta patiently sitting on the bed. I instinctively pull my robe tighter around me. I am very aware of my state of undress.

"Oh…I'm sorry…I just…I uh got off early today." Peeta blushes and squirms a little. I'm strangely triumphant that I seem to have made him uncomfortable, but I'm also very sympathetic. On top of that I'm unbelieving that I'm the one that elicits such reactions in him.

"Uh, Greasy Sae said she thought you were hurting. Did you really bring in a deer all by yourself?" I can hear the disapproving tone. I sigh and roll my eyes.

"Thanks for caring Peeta, but I'm fine." I say before I walk a few steps, but my back spasms horribly and it stops me right in my tracks. Peeta is by my side. So much for pretending I was okay.

"Come here." He holds onto my arm and guides me to the bed. He places me in front him with my back to him.

"It's not that bad. I've had much worse." I try to remind him unnecessarily.

"Shh." He almost scolds. "I know that, but you're still hurt."

I breathe as deeply as I can, not sure what he is doing, but feeling electrified by his presence. Suddenly I feel his timid touch against my shoulder. His hands start to massage me and I feel relief instantly. A strange sound comes from the back of my throat, but he keeps going.

"Does it feel better?" He asks quietly.

"Mmhmm." I am unable to form words.

He moves slowly toward my neck. He reaches the collar of my robe and he hesitates. "Can you bring down your robe a little?"

My eyes pop open at his question. I'm not sure if I can let my robe fall away a little. Am I capable of being that comfortable with Peeta? He saw my bra not long ago but we hadn't gone to taking it off. I am just in my underwear after all. Can I be this way with him? My mind calculates all the things that could happen and I wonder if I think anyone of them is a good idea right now.

I know he accepts me for who I am scarred flesh and all, but I find myself thinking about how self conscious I am about that too. How can a simple question conjure so much trouble?

"You okay, Katniss?" His hands rub my shoulders down through my arms. The warmth is amazing, and I find myself considering how warm it would be without the barrier of my robe.

"Close your eyes." I tell him. I turn around to make sure he has.

When I am certain he will not open them back up I resituate the robe so that my arms and back are exposed but my front is not. I sit back down and sigh out the tension that has built up in my stomach. It's still there though, knowing that he'll be touching my skin now.

"Okay." I finally say readying myself.

There is nothing for a long minute. Then…his hands are on my skin tracing the places that were once covered with my robe. I swallow deep and close my eyes. He starts massaging me again. The pain from the haul starts to recede.

Peeta's hands aren't perfect. They are workers hands; calloused and strong. But they work well against my imperfect back. Soon his ministrations ends and his hands rest gently on me.

"Thank you." I whisper. He scoots forward until he is very close to me. I feel shaky as Peeta presses a kiss on my neck.

"You're very welcome." He kisses me again. I turn so he can kiss my lips. It starts out innocent enough, but I feel heat hidden behind it all.

In a sense I feel discomfort being so exposed with Peeta so close, but another part of me is thrilled. A hidden desire wants him to see me, touch me. I clutch the fabric tighter to me. I feel Peeta's arms encircle me.

"It's okay." He soothes.

"I know." I take my arms and put them over his. "I love you." It's becoming easier to say now.

He sighs and rests his head on my shoulder softly. It's still a little sore and I wince.

"I'm sorry." He starts to back away but I hold him to me.

"Stay." I don't know what I want from him, but I need him to be here with me.

"What are you thinking about?" He asks me while giving me a careful squeeze.

I bite my lip unsure if I want to let out all that I'm thinking about. "I had a chance to take out a buck today." Peeta is quiet, waiting for me to get to the point. I'm not even sure what the point is.

"Then I remembered that my father once told me something. _Never go for the shot that might stop your next one. _Basically don't go for the obvious shot especially if you don't think of the consequences."

I lean back into him feeling his strength transfer to me. "I have to wonder how many times I made that mistake in my life. I was thinking of the Games today. I wish…I just wish I knew better. How many people maybe didn't have to die if I was a little braver, or a little wiser? And then there is always Prim."

I stop talking feeling like I would be opening a part of myself that still wept at the mention of her beautiful name. Of course that makes me think of my mother who has disappointed me beyond the spectrum of forgiveness at the moment.

"We all make bad or misinformed decisions Katniss. And a lot of the decisions you had to make were split second ones. You can't blame yourself or look back and think if only. You'll go crazy. Believe me."

Peeta's tone turned bitter at the end. I know he understands how I feel to some extent.

"I know that." I responded without exactly exonerating myself from the responsibility I feel.

"You've made really awesome decisions too." He is trying to cheer me up. I suppose I would be trying to do the same if it was him.

"You." I say quietly almost hoping he won't hear.

I want him to know how much I care for him but at the same time I have a trouble expressing myself. I want to keep things to myself too much.

"Me?"

"Yes, you." I turn around still holding the robe tight around me. "You were the best decision I made. To let you in. To love you. When I thought I had lost you, I almost lost it."

I feel like I'm not getting this out right so I look down praying he comprehends what I'm saying. He hugs me with so much love I can feel it through his skin. I cuddle into him laying my head on his shoulder.

"You were my best decision too." He says with a smile. "You are getting so much better at that, you know?" There is a teasing tone to his voice.

"What do you mean?" I ask innocently.

He laughs a little. "Katniss, it used to be like pulling teeth trying to get out of you what you were really were thinking. I must say I'm liking this much better."

"But I still am horrible at getting things out right." I mumble into his chest. He grasps my arms and makes me sit up.

"You say things perfectly, as long as you say them. I promise you." His fingers trace my cheek and I have the most intense temptation to smile. I can't help it.

"Beautiful." He says simply before kissing me with unequaled fervor.

His hands caress my face and tangle in my hair while his lips move over mine ardently. His hands move down my neck and on my shoulders and arms. My eyes roll into the back of my head when I feel his touch this way. I pull away making another decision.

If I really want to have all I want with Peeta, then I know I have to be more open. More willing to experience things with him, and more willing to put myself on the line. I want everything with Peeta, but I really don't know how to get there.

"What's the matter?" He looks concerned. This is the man I want to be with, in every way. I feel safe and I don't want to hide anymore.

"Nothing." I answer back before taking my hands off the fabric and letting it fall away revealing me to him. My heart is pounding so hard and so fast I think it's the only sound I will ever hear from now on.

His eyes stay on mine but he can't help letting his eyes drift down. He stares for long time with his mouth hanging open. I am not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I know that I will be inconsolably humiliated if this doesn't work out right. I begin to feel afraid that I've sent him over the edge or something, but then he looks up to me as if asking permission. His hand reaches out and freezes mid air as he waits for my allowance. I take a moment to collect myself and then nod to him.

I close my eyes and wait. When I finally feel his shy hands against me a shiver runs through my spine and a shaky breath escapes me. So very careful and loving, his hands outline this new mysterious territory. Something unexpected burns inside of me. The hunger. The need. I want more.

I open my eyes and his seem like they are tearful. "You are so absolutely gorgeous. You don't know how many times I've dreamed of this."

I put my arms around his neck and with a kiss he pulls me to straddle his lap. We've never been in this position and I'm surprised how different it feels. In some way I feel more in control. I kiss his neck and face. I feel him against me, wanting me.

Then I am pulling at his shirt. I want to feel his bare skin on mine. I feel like it's so necessary to feel that close to him. When I finally do manage to get the shirt off, I pause for a moment in anticipation. His hands are on either side of my back, soothing me up and down. Then I hug him and we both make a satisfied noise. In my mind I think, _"Finally."_

When I pull back and kiss him, the urgency and fervor of my passion is unrestrained. I can't get enough of him. I need to be closer, but I'm still unsure if I'm ready. My thoughts begin a string of worry and once more I find myself slowing because of it.

"I can't go any further than this right now." I warn Peeta who only nods and starts kissing my collarbone.

He kisses down my chest until he is at my breast. Without warning suddenly I am in his mouth. I grab at his hair and moan loudly. My body starts moving almost uncontrollably. My hips roll into motion. I think to myself that my body wants to continue so badly. I can foresee if it was more in control than we would be going much farther.

He kisses across me and takes my other nipple into his mouth as well. I know I should feel some sort of embarrassment over something shared so intimate, but I can't find it in me to care. In the center of my body I feel the sensation that always ignites with Peeta whenever we become intimate, but somehow it is undeniably stronger.

My mind is a jumble of thoughts and feelings. His hips began to move with me and my thought process completely halts, and allows me to focus on the sensation he's creating. His nails scratch up and down my back. Peeta has never been so uninhibited before, and I find myself cherishing it instead of fearing it. He's only this way with me, and that excites me.

"Oh, Peeta." I breathe out without realizing I had said it aloud.

I'm on my back against the bed and Peeta hovers over me. He kisses my mouth with abandon. He is wild, and beautiful. He finds my neck more interesting and kisses a spot that has me making sounds I wasn't aware I could make.

"You have no idea how much I love hearing you." He whispers hoarsely into my ear.

He continues to be attentive to my body. It's almost like an act of worship the way he treats it. We stay inside this bubble of ardor for a long time before Peeta stops us.

He is breathing heavy and his hair is sticking up all over the place. I giggle a little trying to fix his hair while he smiles down on me. "I'll be right back." He says.

I lie on the bed still partially nude staring up at the ceiling. I cover myself feeling exposed now that Peeta isn't in the room. Before, I could never imagine being so close or open with someone. I had no idea that this would be the way I would spend my afternoon, but Peeta and I never plan these things.

We go through our daily activities day after day. We are haunted by our memories, and are own faults. We carry on until something has built up inside of us that is undeniable, this need to be known and comforted by one another. And whenever we satisfy ourselves with each other, I am never left feeling uncomfortable. I was certain that that feeling would haunt me, but it doesn't. I am so very grateful for that.

When I realize that Peeta has been gone for more than a little while, I ponder what he might be doing. Suddenly a revelation hits me and I know. I can relate to how much tension still has built in my body, but it ebbs away slowly. My body can become acclimated again. It takes some time, but I can move on with my daily life.

But Peeta…

I never thought he might be in pain after we had been together. I try not to think of what he is doing, but I can't. Part of me is curious and a little upset that I'm not bringing him relief. Then another part of me is so unprepared to see him fully. To touch him or to give him release.

There is still much I have to learn and to get used to. Even though some parts of us becoming more personal has been easier than I had anticipated, I can feel that there will be complications and misunderstandings along the way. I feel like cursing my innocence, but I'm glad that I'm sharing it with Peeta instead of anyone else.

**Please REVIEW. They are better than sensual massages. LOL! **


	10. Chapter 10

Hello! Sorry I haven't updated. I really have no excuse other than I felt a little out of touch with Hunger Games lately. I need to read the books again, because I'm forgetting stuff. I hope the characterization in this chapter is not completely off.

**WARNING!** This chapter does have lemony goodness in it. Basically this is why this story is rated M guys. Little nervous about this *wrings hands* I think they are ready for this.

I will be working on a chapter soon that has Peeta and Katniss fight…hee hee. I'm evil.

**PLEASE **let me know what you think in a **REVIEW**. That would make my day and really motivate me to keep working.

I'm also working on a couple of stories right now for Twilight (AH), so be on the lookout for those please. Just give it a chance.

Please **REVIEW!** PLEASE place me in your **Author Alert!** And check me out on **Twitter** under **JackBadJuJu.**

**THANK YOU! **

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"What are thinking about?" Peeta startles me.

I have been lying in bed after a nap during the day. Naps I never take, but my mind seemed to want to the rest. I dreamed of Peeta and me. The dream was one of the most intense and pleasurable things I'd ever experienced, and yet it was just a dream.

I dreamed I was showering, the heat of the water steaming up the bathroom making the scene ethereal. I can hardly see in front of me, and the steam clings to my skin. Then suddenly I turn around, and he is there.

I am not surprised only happy to see him. I smile wide and free. I watch as he admires my body. When I look down there are no scars, no reminders of the horrible experiences before. My hands search for any evidence, but they are gone. I look back up to Peeta to see him softly smiling.

"You are so beautiful." He whispers reverently. I believe him strangely, but I do not question it.

The scene changes and we are in bed, both nude. As I watch the dream I instantly feel some embarrassment over it, but my dream self is completely comfortable. I try to focus on that feeling.

His touch is exquisite. Fire spreads across my skin and settles in deep. His words are breathtaking. Every single proclamation of love is saved inside and absolutely believed. I observe with great anticipation as his hands drifts down my body to the apex of my legs. I am not completely sure what will happen, but I can only surmise it has to be something satisfying.

My body is wracked with such strong sensations that my eyes close tightly even though I wish to see Peeta's face. The ecstasy is so unbelievable that my senses and other desires are cut off. I only focus on the pleasure.

He is over me then, rocking back and forth. The dream becomes disjointed, choppy. Images of his hands on me, my hands on him as well as our bodies tangled.

I wake up with the white of afternoon light in my eyes. I feel like I have just surfaced from heaven as I feel reality seep into my veins once more. My mind wanders back to the dream, and I am consumed by the feeling it created. Is this kind of bodily enjoyment possible? I am innocent, but not completely incompetent when it comes to sex. I know the mechanics and I've heard of people enjoying it, but I had not anticipated it.

"Katniss?" He asks me as lays down next me. I still have not answered his first question.

I turn to him. His hair is brushed away from his face, and I see a little flour caught just on his hairline. I reach for it and brush it off, and then my attention is brought to the stubble of his chin. I absentmindedly allow my hand to linger there before it finally returns to my side.

He turns to his side and comes closer. His hand takes a piece of stray hair and tucks it behind my ear. It's something he often does, and I feel the affection of the tiny gesture.

"Peeta?"

"Mmm?" He hums.

"Sometimes when you dream," I swallow down my cowardice to stop talking and continue, "When you are not having a nightmare I mean…do you dream regular dreams?"

His brow wrinkles quizzically. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing." I answer back after a moment losing my nerve. I move my face to look back out the window. He gently places his hand on my face, and urges me to look at him.

"What's this about?" He asks. I look at him hoping he could read my mind, but fearing that as well.

"Did you have a good dream? Is that what you mean?" His finger traces my cheekbone. I try to not let the touch hypnotize me, but he has such a profound effect on me. I nod to him.

"That's great." His smile is big and beautiful, and it would be a little contagious if I wasn't so nervous and self-conscious. But then I remind myself that I'm the one putting myself out there.

"What did you dream about?" His question so innocent, and my almost answer not at all. It overwhelms me and I can do nothing but bite my lip. I huff out a breath feeling this was a lot more difficult than it should be.

"Did you dream about me?" Peeta finally asks, letting me off the hook. When I look over to him he's smiling the widest smile I've ever seen.

I cover my face with my hands and groan. Humiliation has just overtaken me to the point of sickness. Why am I being so immature about this?

"Look I'm not that girl." I mumble more to myself than to him.

He gently takes my hands away from my face. "What do you mean you're "not that girl"?"

"I can't talk about this stuff without feeling incredibly uncomfortable. I know it doesn't make sense, but it makes me feel stupid."

Right when I'm done complaining Peeta lays a searing kiss on me. It doesn't take me long to respond to him, and soon we are kissing with abandon. Before I become completely frenzied by him, and willing to do almost anything, he stops.

"Did that feel stupid?" His voice is hoarse and breathless. I slowly shake my head no. "Then don't feel that way talking about it. It's just you and me. We don't have an audience."

When he says "we don't have an audience" suddenly I'm transported back to the cave when we did. When I was faking. When I felt stupid, but did it anyway to save both of our lives. I sigh out heavy, still feeling the giant boulder on my chest that will always be there reminding me of what I've been through.

"Hey, where'd you go?" He holds onto one of my hands.

I'm hesitant to tell him, but I do anyway. "The cave."

He understands immediately. He lies down on his back. "Why did you think of that?"

"The audience comment." I put my hand over my eyes knowing I've ruined the moment. "Sorry, I couldn't help it."

"It's okay." He says as he gathers me in his arms. "I really can't complain about that when I can't help it either."

He lets us lay there comfortable and silent awhile before he asks me again. "What was the dream about? Us…together?"

He says it more politely than a typical man would, and I'm thankful. I feel a little more at ease with a certain vocabulary in this issue.

"Yes." I say and bury my head in his chest and begin feeling like an idiot again. Although it's still there, it's not as bad as it was before.

"Are you worried that will happen? Cause I'm okay with whatever you are ready for. I'm not pushing and we don't have to ever…"

"I want to." I blurt out. His eyes are surprised and his mouth is trying to smile.

"Right now?" He's joking with me, but I know he wants an answer as much as I would want one in his position.

"No. Yes." I become exasperated. "I don't know." I pull away for him.

We lay there for a moment understanding the change that is coming over us. I feel in some strange way more of an adult. It's like leaving some childlike state of mind, but I can't really remember just being a kid.

"Come here." He says as he reaches for me.

I allow his arms around me again. He kisses my forehead, and then my cheeks. His fingertips run along my scalp. I am content and happy with him so close to me again. He checks my eyes before he kisses my mouth, almost chaste and very sweet. Then he gives me a little more, and my contentment changes. Once more urgency simmers inside me. I'm always astonished he can create this feeling in me.

When his tongue touches my lips I feel as if he is lighting a fire. His hands cup my face, and one rolls down my side settling on my thigh. His grip tightens and loosens as if he's waiting for me to stop this exercise, but I can't seem to make myself stop. I grab at his shirt and take it off. Suddenly he takes full grasp of my leg and hitches it over his hip.

The position is wonderful, but I need more. I roll him over, and soon I am on top of him leaning over to kiss him. I feel his hardness against me. I can't understand how I feel so overjoyed that I can make him want me. It's some odd accomplishment in my eyes. I feel brave and wild, and all too soon for thought my shirt is off completely. He immediate grabs at my nude breasts.

I let him touch me to my benefit, but then I think of the other day when he had to leave me. He in a small way suffers because I never pay any attention to him. I take his hands into my own, and I kiss each one before laying them at his sides. I lean back and scoot myself down one of his legs. His pants are tented, and he is breathing heavy and desperate. I look at this new obstacle, and try to gain some nerve to move forward.

It's not necessarily that I'm scared of touching him. It's that I'm unsure exactly what to do, and that makes me nervous. What if I do something wrong, touch him the wrong way? Can I hurt him?

We are both quiet aside from our quickening breath as I tentatively reach out to touch him through his pants. When I reach him he moans loudly. When I take my hand and move down his length he rolls his head back as if it's involuntary. Triumph soars through me in such intoxicating manner.

I'm amazed how hard he is now that I'm inspecting him finally. I wonder how all of him will fit into me whenever we do decide to take the next step.

"Can I take them off?" At first I am confused over his request. I then I understand that he wants to take his pants off.

I swallow down my insecurities and fear, and decide that I've had worse things to worry and fear over. I am strong and capable woman. This is was just another test of life, and I could get through it happily if only I would stop being distressed over it.

I reach for the waistband of his pants myself. When I pull them down I also accidently pull down his boxers. There suddenly he is before me. I find myself staring unabashedly. He's beautiful in a way, but also very intimidating. I find that my courage is being sucked out of me, but my curiosity and need to make him feel good keeps me on track with any activity we might engage in. I trust him, and that's all that matters.

The tips of my fingers touch him, and once more Peeta reacts pleasurably. I'm astounded how soft he is. It's like silk drawn over steel. The contrast has me so engrossed that I easily find a rhythm of touching him that seems to please Peeta.

"Katniss." He sighs out my name. I stop and wait for him to look at me.

"Am I doing this right?" I ask letting my hand go up and down again. Peeta stifles a groan.

He stops me a moment, and leans over to his nightstand pulling a bottle out. He puts some liquid in his hand, and takes my hand into his and puts me back where I was.

"You can grasp on tighter." His hands correct me and I continue.

Peeta lays back, and grips the sheets underneath him. I watch with so much joy knowing I can make him feel this way. I then start to imagine him inside me like in the dream. It's hard to picture since I'm unsure exactly how we are supposed to fit together, but I feel a stirring inside of me. Its anticipation and hunger mixed.

"Come lay down next me and do it." He asks. I do as he says, and I find I like the closeness of having him near as I help relieve him. He kisses me lips, and his moans are so magical to me.

He suddenly rolls to his side as I'm still holding him. "Roll to your side for me." I do and then he takes my leg and puts it over waist. "Please let me touch you." He almost begs.

I nod my head uncertain of what he will do.

I focus on stroking him earnestly, and then I feel his hand cup me over my pajama pants in between my legs. Instinctively my hips move forward almost to meet him. I look up to him fearing this out of control feeling, but he whispers to me, "It will be alright."

He gently rubs me until suddenly he finds a spot that makes me gasp. My hand falters, and almost slips away from him. "You see. I promise I can make you feel good, Katniss."

He kisses me hard and needy, and the pressure of his hand increases. It's perfect the sensation he's creating as if by some miracle. This was what I dreamed of, feeling this way.

I close my eyes and the sensation seems to increase. I have a hard time focusing on Peeta. I begin to tell him to stop so that I may pleasure him, but he starts rubbing me in earnest and I'm lost. This precipice appears in front me, and all I want to do is fall over into the sweet oblivion it offers.

Suddenly, I'm there and then not. I'm floating yet completely grounded. I'm gasping out trying my best not to make any embarrassing noises, but I know I've moaned and called out Peeta's name. When finally I am able to open my eyes and focus, I see that I've never let go of Peeta.

He is watching me with a look of awe on his face. He rolls onto his back, and started to stroke himself while holding onto me.

"I want to." I say lowly. He nods and lets me.

"Are you sure?" He looks a little worried. I answer him by continuing.

It doesn't take long for Peeta to moan loudly, still my hand, and then finally achieve his release. I try to not to think of the mess, but only that he is smiling contently. He looks to me and kisses me soundly.

"I love you." He looks so carefree, so happy. This was worth it.

He gets up and cleans himself off, and then lies back down with me. His arms encircle me.

"Thank you." He whispers before giving me a little squeeze. "I know that must have been difficult for you."

"It was very worth it, Peeta." I admit to him.

"You are so beautiful when you let go." He traces the blush that forms along my cheeks and neck. "Do you feel at least a little better?"

I smile at him. "Yes, that was…what I essentially dreamed about."

"Hopefully better." He looks mischievous. I laugh at him and nod. He looks rather pleased.

I know the next step is very close. I know it will change everything, much as this afternoon changed everything. I'm ready for it, when the time is right. I'm ready because Peeta is all I need, and will ever want.


	11. Chapter 11

**Hello everyone. Sorry for not updating in forever. I lost my eyesight off and on for a time and was unable to do much really. It's all better now. **

**Please REVIEW! It really really helps me become more motivated. I don't withhold chapters because I'm waiting for reviews, but I promise you when I get a lot of reviews I tend to write more and faster. **

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**Thanks to everyone for their support and love. The reviews I do have are treasured. I will start responding to reviews this chapter. **

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**Quote used - Fear is faith that it won't work out. ~Sister Mary Tricky**

**I don't own anything of Hunger Games…**

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There is a twist to the air as its ravished by the fearful wind. I wait for it to die down a little before climbing further up the hill. It cuts off abruptly, and to be honest I didn't feel like falling a few hundred feet down a rocky precipice.

I keep going, feeling strangely compelled. I need to get away, run from the fight I just had with Peeta. It burns in my mind and I feel the fury again, but there is also something else there. I identify it as guilt. I hadn't been exactly patient or kind in the argument. I had actually had been kind of mean, perhaps cruel.

I blow the hair out of my face, and continue on. I'm trying to find another view point like the one I used to have with Gale. I don't want to return to the old viewpoint because of well…Gale. I heard some news a few days about him, but I'm trying my best to forget about it.

I swallow down the lump that begins to form in my throat, getting emotional while basically rock climbing would not be a wise thing to do. My mind wanders away from me, and I begin to wonder if something happened to me out here, would anyone know? Peeta watched as I practically ran into the forest, but then the forest is huge and in some places unyielding. How long would it take to find me with only the clue of that?

I steady my resolve again and keep going. This hill once had several immovable fallen trees at the base of it, but since the bombing they were destroyed. I have to see what is at the top of this hill. I have to know for some odd and desperate reason. It suddenly gets steeper, and I am almost crawling my way up. It's a physical challenge that I gladly take, anything to get the two men who seem to always enter my mind out of my thoughts. One because of my love for him and the other…for my almost love with him and now concern.

One step and then another. I am grabbing at the grass under me to make progress. It's arduous and I am absolutely sure it's dangerous. I take a break for a moment and try to see what the hill might reveal over the tree line. I am disappointed to see I'm still not high enough, and the only thing that dominates my eye line is the dense population of pine trees.

I notice my breathing is ragged. I breathe in deep trying to control my emotions, trying to understand why they have such gravity in my life. Without warning it all comes back to me.

_We are in bed. We hold onto each other as we kiss, and I'm sure I know where it's going to lead us. I'm ready. I can finally say that I feel like I'm ready. I am sure he will ask this time, or perhaps hint. His kisses are needy, desperate, and filled with desire. _

_Suddenly he stops and just holds me. The world comes to a slamming halt. I have the awful thought in my head that I'm being rejected for some foolish reason. I have a feeling that a conversation is going to happen that might not be pleasing to me. Peeta is too pensive at the moment for me to think otherwise._

"_Katniss, you know how much I love you and want to be with you right?" He asks out of blue. _

_I look up to him to see the earnest affection in his eyes. I nod yes, at once sensing there is another shoe to drop. When is there not one?_

"_I think…I mean I would like to…I mean…I, well…I-" _

"_What's going on Peeta?" I am concerned at this point because he seems too nervous. _

"_Nothing is. Nothing at all." He sighs out a hard breath, and then his grip on me tightens a bit as if he knows I'm going to run away with what he's about to say. _

"_Katniss, do like living with me? Being with me?" _

_I sit up and clearly my face shows confusion. "Just say real or not real." He says. _

"_Real." I answer. _

"_And you want to be with me for…well for the rest of our lives." He looks even more nervous than before. "Real or not real?"_

"_Peeta-"_

"_Just…answer so I know. I just want to know." His eyes implore me. _

"_Of course real. Yes." The breath he's been holding comes out relieved hearing my answer. _

"_What's all this about?" I almost order. He looks down, and seems to consider numerous things. _

"_Katniss," He begins with some confidence. "I think we should get married." _

_There seems to be a strange noise in the room. I look around trying to classify it, but I simply can't. Peeta is looking at me expectantly and the noise gets louder. _

"_Katniss?" _

_Still I can't figure out where this damn noise is coming from. Then it dawns on me. It's my heart pounding, but not in a good way. I hear my blood whirring inside my head. It's my fear and my reluctance. It's my ambivalence and rebellion. _

"_Peeta…why?" _

"_What do you mean?" He looks forlorn. "Don't you love me?"_

_I almost leap off the bed. I can't be exposed to guilt right now. He has done too much for me, and I could be convinced to do almost anything. But I don't want this. I don't want to get married. _

"_You know I love you. I love you. I love you." I kiss him on the lips as I stand by the bed."I love you." I say it more than I ever have before, hoping to distract him from this horrible idea._

"_Then what is it?" He holds my face so I can't make a quick getaway. _

"_Please don't ask me this. I would do almost anything, but not this." I plead with him. _

"_You act like it's a prison sentence, Katniss." _

"_You get married to have children, Peeta. Yes, it's a prison sentence…for them." I feel tears creep into my voice. They taunt me into believing they will be let free at any moment. _

"_Children are not reaped anymore. There is not a Capitol anymore to fight. They will be safe." He tries to assure me, but I rip my face out of his hands. _

"_Yes, because regimes don't rise again, or governments don't change their minds. Peeta, I can't bring a child in the world fearing that they will come back in some way. You should remember well enough what they are capable of. I can't do it!" My voice has grown loud, and it's the only sound alive in the room. Then silence rules it. _

_I look to him and see that in some way I've hurt him, or at least hurt whatever concept he had of us for the future. He looks pained, and then I can't see his eyes anymore because he has lowered his head. _

"_Peeta." I sit back down on the bed. "I'm sorry. I just can't imagine feeling like that all the time. I already fear for you and my mother and…" I almost say it, but I don't. _

_Learning the news about Gale wasn't exactly helping the conversation we were having, but nonetheless Peeta knows me too well to figure out precisely who's name I was about to say. _

"_Is this about Gale?" I can't fathom how he can look so sad and unsure of himself, but I knew he would think this. I had anticipated this, and still I am unable to think of a good diversion away from this subject. _

_Recently, I had learned that Gale had found someone. I was happy, overjoyed even. But then I found out he was getting married and expecting a child. The thought soured in my mind. I remembered him wanting children, but we always agreed (at least I thought) that it was too dangerous. Now I found myself concerned over his happiness. _

_What if it got taken away? What if the people he loved the most were taken away from him like the plucking of petal off a flower? Something once so beautiful and whole turns into ugly, dark emptiness. Despite the darkness he inadvertently and indirectly inflicted upon my own life, I still can't contemplate him suffering anything close. _

_But the truth even though, yes I was worried for him, I was worried for myself. I feel like I got caught up in this bubble these past months, and I've forgotten some of the pain. I don't want to feel the pain, but it protects me from making stupid decisions that would only harm me more. _

_Gale didn't lose his sister to fire or his mother to selfish grief. He kept his family during the Games and the Rebellion. Peeta can understand me because he has it worst than me. He lost his whole family. So I feel confused. Why risk more pain, more heartache, and more agony? _

_I don't know what to say to Peeta because I can't express myself in the moment. I feel angry he would bring it up. We had an unwritten rule that we would not bring Gale up…ever. _

"_Nice, Peeta." I say sarcastically and move away from me. Peeta grabs at me trying to make me stay, but I move away too quickly. Our touch is brisk, rough and so different than a few minutes ago. _

_In that moment I hate him for making me so vulnerable, so available to disappointment, rejection, and hurt. What am I doing? Why am I letting myself be so exposed? I remind myself that I love him, more than anything. I breathe deep trying to calm myself down. I just want to run. Run away for a little while until I am calm and can think. _

"_Why can't you answer the question Katniss?" Peeta demands. It bristles my nerves to hear him use the tones he is currently indulging in. _

"_It's not about him okay! At least not in the way you think it is!" I feel my anger rise with my voice. _

"_Well, what am I supposed to think? I mean, ever since you've heard you've had this strange look on your face, like you're mourning or something." _

"_Unbelievable." I huff. "You think I still want to be with him. How many times do I have to tell you…its you. It's always been you, Peeta. I have struggled with myself and countless circumstances to prove that to you. What will it take?" I throw my hands up into the air exasperated. _

_He looks down quickly and then back up to my eyes, and I see the thought in his mind before he can voice it. Marrying him would serve as proof. _

"_No, I can't." My temper is flaring and I can't seem to control my emotions. _

_He looks heartbroken and livid himself. I feel his pain so acutely in my bones. It swims in the air with the massive tension pressing down on us. I begin to resent him. We could possibly be taking the next step right now, but he's ruined the moment. He's ruined everything. _

_I start putting on my boots. Getting away is the only thing I can see at that moment to do. Escape sears so vibrant in my mind that I barely see Peeta stand in front of me. _

"_Katniss, don't leave. We need to talk about this." He is almost begging, but it's lost on me. _

_In some way I feel betrayed by him. I feel like he knew the answer before he asked, but he was trying to get me to do something I didn't want to do. Who does that to someone they love?_

"_Get out of my way." My voice is heartless. I almost wince at the tone, but then I'm reminded that I'm still pissed. _

"_Is this what you're going to do? Run away whenever things get a little rough?" He shakes his head."No, I won't let you." _

"_Won't let me? No one tells me what to do. Who the hell are you? You're no one!" The words shock not only Peeta but me. _

_I feel myself melt with shame for a moment, and then he moves slowly out of the way. My mind so obsessed with getting out of this conversation screams at me and my body is moving before I can stop and think of the consequences of my words and actions. _

_I run out of the house, looking back only once to see Peeta on the porch watching me flee. _

I wake up from the memory as if coming out of a trance. I feel the wind blow cold on my tear streaked face. My whole body is frozen in an uncomfortable pose. I'm clinging onto this steep hill with all my strength, and my arms and legs have gone numb.

I start moving again. I move slower feeling my thoughts weigh me down to the ground. I keep moving until I feel that I cannot go on. Then I sit and start to sob. What was wrong with me?

Maybe I was mourning like Peeta said, but not in the way he thinks. I'm mourning for the absoluteness I used to have inside me, the idea that I knew myself better than this. I knew what I wanted and what I didn't want.

The truth was…I wanted children. I wanted to have children with Peeta. I wanted to see the mixture of both of us on innocent faces. I wanted to watch them grow, and teach them things that my parents taught me. I wanted to feel connected to someone again that I've grown up with.

Why couldn't I have said that to him? Why did I feel the need to hide all this from him? Because I was afraid. I was frightened he would somehow be able to convince me that it would be okay. He always made me feel safe, but I didn't want to feel safe in this. I knew, at least I felt, like it would be a lie. We would have no control over the world around us if it once more fell into darkness.

I was so adamantly against it not because I had no heart, but because I had too much heart. I felt too deeply for children I didn't even have. I have felt too deeply for everyone I ever loved. Losing Prim, watching her die has scarred me beyond what I could have imagined. I almost feel like I would be replacing Prim like my mother obviously has. But I have to remind myself…she wasn't my child. It just felt that way.

And now Gale, who I thought felt somewhat the same way, was doing exactly the thing I feared. It seemed everyone around me was starting over. I had noticed more than one pregnant woman in town. Everyone was moving on and living life. They all felt…safe. Was I just stuck in the past?

When I look up, I see that I have broken the tree line. There a miniaturized version of my house. A tiny dot walks back and forth on the porch. Peeta.

He's given me my life back. He's given me hope and love. Forgiveness. He's forgiven me over and over again. Why can't I give this to him?

I stay for awhile before the air gets too cold. Fall is coming. I am risking illness being out here. I start to move feeling more calm, but not any less conflicted. Getting down is a lot harder then climbing up. Many times I find myself blinded by my own body climbing down.

I am trying to focus on the task at hand instead of my simmering emotions, but I fail when I slip and fall a couple of feet. I manage to grasp onto the small tree sticking out to the side, but it's frail. My hard breathing and panicked thinking is the only thing ruling my mind.

I observe a ledge not far from me that I could jump to safety. Part of the hill under me has fallen, and I have nowhere to go.

Before I can start developing a plan to get to the ledge, the tree starts to waver under my weight. Peeta flashes before my mind. His smile, and then his worried face.

Then it hits me. What would happen to Peeta if he lost me? I never pondered this. I've always been too selfish to think of only what if I lost him.

He's lost everyone. He has no mother that is avoiding him, but still available to him. He has no best friend he could try to reconcile with. He has…me.

Dangling almost midair makes me not only afraid for my own life but for Peeta's. Would he try to kill himself if he lost me like I had imagined doing when I felt like I lost everything?

Would marrying him be so bad? Would it be worse than the fate of not having Peeta around?

I start to move as carefully as I can to the ledge, hanging onto the branch for dear life. Its takes a few tries, and some tense moments before I'm safe.

And then I hear a voice, but it's not my own. It's my sisters recycling in my mind. It was a saying she often tried to remind me when I was reluctant to change because of fear. _Fear is faith that it won't work out._

She was always the optimist while I lingered in pessimism. I was giving so much power to my fear. It's what I had been trained to do since I was a child. It's what the Capitol had wanted; me in constant fear.

I loved Peeta. Marriage didn't mean the same thing to him as it did for me. I realized it was just another way for me to tell the world I loved him. To me it was a way of telling the world we were going to have children and risk it all. I sat on the ledge with the trees now obscuring my view. I wanted more than anything in that moment to see him, feel him, and apologize to him.

I managed to get off the ledge without much incident, and then I practically slide down the hill. I run as fast as I could. I'd made a grave mistake. I have put fear in front of love, in front of Peeta. I didn't even wait to hear how we could work out our problem. I just saw pain. I saw what fate and the Capitol had given to me, not what Peeta had.

I didn't display the faith and trust I had in him. I have to make it right.

I run and run until I am about twenty feet from my door. I stop before I reach the porch searching for Peeta who is nowhere to be found. Perhaps he has finally given up on me.

Then suddenly the door opens, and there he was. I pause for a moment taking the sight of him in. He has been crying too. I have truly hurt him. I know rejecting him hurt him, but I believe running away from him probably hurt more.

I don't hesitate a moment longer. I walk quickly towards him, breaking down in sobs and apologizing over and over again before he took me into his arms. He doesn't say anything for while, but just holds me. I can't stop saying sorry. I feel like I would never be able to say it enough.

Finally he pulls away and says, "I'm sorry Katniss. I know I shouldn't have pushed you." He kisses me lightly.

I hold onto his face. "I'm sorry. There is so much…fear in me. I can't seem to stop it sometimes. I fear disappointing you, but most of all I fear losing you."

"You're not going to lose me, I promise." He hugs me fiercely.

"I will marry you, just give me some time." I whisper in his ear.

He looks at me then with a concerned look on his face. "Katniss, you don't have-

"No, I get it now. It doesn't have to be about kids. I mean…I can…I will try to think about kids, but I can marry you because I love you and I want the world to know." He smiles a blinding smile at my words.

"Are you sure?" He asks cautiously. I nod. "I will wait for you forever." He kisses me soundly, and I feel his body relax.

He takes us into the house still kissing me. I feel like this morning, like this moment could be it. When he guides us up to the bedroom I know it must be that moment. I don't stop to think about fear or hesitation. My faith in him overcomes all things.

_**To be continued….**_

_**Yes, be prepared…we are so going there. LOL! **_


End file.
